Crazy Sunday Mornings
by the butler
Summary: Something's afoot in the wellknown house of our dear assassins. Omi's the domestic law, Ken is holding his breath, Yohji's acting strange and Aya's homicidal... okay, maybe it's not that strange after all.
1. A Snippet of Things

**Disclaimer**: I disclaim (you know the drill, right? Well, if not, then here: I don't own the characters mentioned here, they're somebody else's, I'm just borrowing, etc.).

_**A thing like that, no one looks past from.**_

In the deep of the night, a tall shadow stood out from under the dimmed light of the city moon as it noiselessly stole from behind the floor-length maroon curtains. The room the shadow was standing in was bereft of any sign of being lived in, save for the books aligned on one of the four walls and clothes just now discarded onto the chair dragged from its usual place before the study to stand near the bed. If one can follow the stare of a shadow, one would find, indeed, that it was staring at the occupant of the bed. The thick blanket stopped at pale shoulders that, had it belonged to a less muscled individual that did not own a specific part of anatomy, would have looked fragile. The occupant laid on its left side, one arm underneath the pillow supporting its head of cascading hair of, on some days a brilliant but on nights a deep, wine red. And if one looked real hard, one would find several stitches; some healed burns and old wounds that marred the pale skin of the body steer clear of the face, and barely see those thick lashes flutter.

_**Yes, a thing like that no one could overlook.**_

The shadow seemed, if a shadow could indeed, to hesitate, and after a few seconds, the light poured through the window, and the wind moved the curtains now unhindered by shadows. And the lashes flutter, and the lids open to reveal eyes like pairs of clear-cut amethyst that seemed to pierce the bare space it looked out to, and which swiftly moved to the exact place the shadow had been, as a white-knuckled hand clenched and unclenched on the katana it held carefully hidden below the thick unassuming blanket.

_**A thing not easily dismissed indeed.**_

****

Morning found him seated before Ken and Omi, nursing a mug of coffee. It wasn't really nursing, not really, because he didn't even once sip the stuff. He merely liked holding something warm between his hands, is all, just after a night out in town. He could almost hear himself counting …3…2…

"Kudou."

Immediately Yohji's face brightened up, pasted on a smile and looked up to a would-be assailant. He could see himself, with his invisible eyes afloat somewhere in front of the scene, sitting there with a smile that all that was missing was the 'ting!' (sound equivalent of a gleaming white teeth sparkle, mind you) in front of a very pissed off would-be assailant, who, to begin with, was already really pissed off.

"Aya", a voice started to whine, but then everyone knew who it was, "you promised not to bring your katana in the dining room especially when we're eating!"

Yohji saw the eye twitch ever so slightly and could imagine how Aya wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose and count to ten in all the languages he knew, which, by the way, was around the minimum of five not including the dead languages. That made Yohji's smile grow wider. No one spoke a word, and he knew Ken was holding his breath by the way the young man's palette was slightly turning red.

They stayed that way for some time, Yohji's facial muscles miraculously holding that smile (which seemed to become maniacal more and more with every second that goes by), Omi staying in a brewing tantrum, Aya standing with hands gripping the sides of the table with the katana lain suggestively before Yohji. In fact, Ken was the only one who made some of his muscles move when, after remembering it, he started to breath very discreetly. And, as expected of a house of Assassins, nothing made noise, not even a fly (not because they trained assassin flies, mind you, but because there was no fly because all four gentlemen, yes even Ken, liked to be at least hygienic. When you've seen what they've seen night after night, you would like to be hygienic too. In fact, you'd hold hygiene as one does a security blanket and maybe, as in the case of Aya, develop some sort of obsession to it).

One thought occupied all minds present: 'someone had better fucking give in and make the first move, because we'd go on like this 'till sundown just like last week!'

Of course, none of their faces betrayed this thought. The curious tableau continued for some more moments… and then a sigh. Not a tired sigh, but more of a definite 'you're-not-getting-away-with-this' letting out of air because there is nothing better to say. Aya gave a final menacing glare to Yohji, who thought it a wise decision to wink (which is not a wise decision at all), which made the formers eyes become dangerous narrow slits and stalk off in a huff. When Aya was presumably a great comforting distance way away, the rest started moving- Ken reaching for the plate of eggs, Omi glumly drinking his orange juice, and Yohji gingerly massaging his cheeks and moving his mouth about to wake up some of the facial muscles that fell asleep or froze up from that too long of a smile. Yes, indeed. Same shit every damn Sunday morning.

"Well", Ken said between forkfuls of pancakes, "that went better than last week." The other two nodded in agreement. "At least we didn't all move at the same time and ended up holding our weapons to the neck of the nearest person."

"Who was me, in an unfair sort of way because this is a _square_ table right? That possesses _even_ sides? Which means we're _all_ each other's nearest person? RIGHT?" Said Yohji, a tad reproachful, placing his hands back to their places around the mug.

Omi spared the older man a raised eyebrow. "_You_ had your wire looped around all _our_ necks." Both younger men gave Yohji a look, which Yohji, being himself, promptly ignored.

"Yeah, well…" he trailed off, a bit lamely, and then cleared his throat, "by the way Ken, how come you held your _breath_ that long?"

Ken, failing to see the question as a mere diversionary tactic of Yohji's, or if he did he just disregarded it nonchalantly in a significantly Ken way which is somewhere between being 'simple but not stupid' and 'just plain stupid' (which he was not, mind you, just sometimes seeming to be so, deceptively), shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you know Aya- he can get worked up an' angry at you just because you're breathing."

"Ah." Both Omi and Yohji said; because, well, just what do you say to logic like that? Sometimes, Ken baffled them more than Aya did. They continued in their breakfast, and then someone popped THE question.

"Why is he always like that every Sunday morning this past month, Yohji? Threatening to kill you an' everything?" Ken casually asked, though the question burned and itched at the back of everyone's mind… well by everyone meaning Ken and Omi. The two turned to look at Yohji, expecting an enlightened answer as though he was Buddha and knew what the heck was happening. Yohji shrugged, "like hell I'd know what crept up his butt and died there."

And though there was two pair of eyes on him, they seemed to miss that slight maniacal edge to the laugh, the glint in the eyes, and the awkward way he held the mug. And if the two were interested enough, they'd notice the way Yohji's hands twitched ever so slightly as he loosened his grip on the almost invisible wire blocked from view by the erstwhile warm mug of coffee that Yohji seemed to fancy but never really drank these Sunday mornings of late.

This is an ongoing story that I've also posted on Mediaminer… well… that's all I wanted to say.


	2. Quite Askew Saturday Evenings

_Wasn't it nice to see?_

The cool summer evening came quietly to the house of Assassins, whose occupants were (as per usual) silently going about their way. Down in the living room, the chopsuey-ed music and scripts of quickly changed T.V. channels mingled with the long gulps of cold beer as Ken surfed the cable for a suitable program to watch, which can only be, of course, a good soccer game (replays accepted). Somewhere in the kitchen, the busy clicks of a laptop keyboard mingled with the quiet gush of tap water and clinking china as Aya finished the dishes and Omi his assignment in history. No exchange of words, only darting eyes noting body movement, sensitized ears listening to even breathing, prickling body hair feeling the temperature, nose picking out any unusual smell. As Aya reaches the stairs Omi calls out a goodnight, and Aya nods. Omi didn't need to look at Aya to know Aya nodded. He heard Aya's steps stop, which means he acknowledged Omi's greeting. Besides, it's an Aya thing to revert all bespoken and unspoken acknowledgements to simple nods and eyebrow rising. And Aya didn't need to know how Omi knew he was gone, though his movements gave no sound at all. It's an Assassin thing. Besides, it all seems so cool done that way.

Aya contemplated the stairs. It was carpeted, to muffle any sounds. But damn were those stains hard to take out. It was a straightforward kind of stairs, no unnecessary mock landings. Just up and down, simple as you please. Well, except for the carpet, but that was necessary. Aya liked climbing the stairs with his right hand trailing the wall. He doesn't know why, he just does. Maybe he's memorizing the feel of the wall, the cracks and plasters, so that when someone gets lucky one day and be so talented to blind him, well then he'll be ready. Or maybe, he just likes doing it.

"_Cosa mai te lo ha fatto pensare_?" he told himself, because Aya was, or liked to think he was, a complex man. Sometimes this is what he thinks, but sometimes the other him asks him, rather smugly, "Whatever gave you that idea?" which is the translation of what he just told himself in Italian. That's the time Aya wrinkles his brows, closes his eyes, clamps both hands over his ears, and quietly (but if no one's around, loudly) sing out angrily "la la la la, I'm not listening to you…" And when he reached the top of the stairs, that's exactly what he did. Sometimes, that voice in his head gets on his nerves.

When he was sure the voice went away, actually stalked off rather grumpily because it hated when Aya did that, so in the end they both annoyed each other (which could explain why Aya's annoyed all the time), Aya opened his eyes to see a slightly bewildered Yohji who was midway out of his own room, trying to choose between laughing or staring. This annoyed Aya even more. This is one of the situations when he judges that he has to say something, and that something should be barbed and dripping in venom.

"**_What_**?" Which is a simple word, really, but the way Aya said it, it could mean the vilest cuss word there is, or perhaps, 'what-the-fuck-are-you-standing-there-for-you-asshole?'

Yohji, besides all the self-berating sessions he had with himself to NOT stand down from any unpleasantness Aya did, promptly '_eeped_'' and went back inside his room, careful not to slam the door lest Aya thought he was annoyed or something. _Damn_, he thought. _There goes your dignity, stupid. _And he gave himself a mental smack on the head.

Aya indulged himself to a smug smile, gave Yohji's door a look equivalent to 'hah!' and went to his own room. Other than these peculiar instances, Aya normally acts sanely, which is not to say that he is insane, mind you.

* * *

The cool quiet summer evening drifted into Yohji's room to the reggae beat of Bob Marley's "I Don't Want to Wait in Vain" in a reasonable volume, because he couldn't really turn it up to his volume of taste, because that would be impolite to his next wall neighbor, who happened to be Aya. The first few times he'd been impolite with the noise coming from his room (which consisted of creaking hinges, wall thumping and loud moaning bed partner/s), Aya had a word with him in the privacy of the stock room. Now, Yohji's a nice person, and he likes to chat with people because, well, he's socially chatty and he was a P.I. But that _word_ with Aya wasn't the _word_ he would like to hold with, if ever, the laconic man. In fact, it made him wish never to have another _word_ with Aya ever again.

Not that he's easy to bully about, mind you, he's an Assassin who is superbly effective when drunk, what more if sober. It's just that Aya's extra-creepy. Make that _really extra 'give-you-the-heebie-jeebies' _creepy. Aya acted as if he didn't have a life outside Assassinating. Well… come to think of it none of them technically had a life, because they're all (supposedly) dead, but at least they had their hobbies.

Omi had his studies and classmates and adolescent worries, which consisted mostly of growth pains (or lack thereof), failing grades (or lack thereof), girl problems (or lack thereof) and general 'me-against-the-whole-fucking-world' angst (or lack thereof). Mostly, it's lack thereof.

Ken had his obsession (soccer), hobby (soccer), sport (soccer), contribution to the local community (teaching soccer), and dreams (soccer). Occasionally, he'd practice soccer in between.

He (Yohji the magnificent) had flirting for past time, a black book that could be considered the yellow pages for women of Tokyo, and women in between. He had friends who gave the best advices (who all had the job of bartender), nights of debauchery and in times of solitude, the good company of Mr. Johnny Walker and associates Mr. (insert name of any- and he means _any_- alcoholic liquor here) plus Mr. Marlboro. Sometimes, he'd _'go hippie_' as his Mumsy used to say, which means to generally smoke pot and… well, go hippie. But most of all, he had his Seven, to which Aya's white Porsche (and this is pronounced by way of a sneer) can never compare.

Paltry though these may seem to normal lives, well, what is normal anyway and who's dictating it? He'd like to give the smart-aleck a good walloping. Anyway, theirs are a feast compared to Aya's dry toast without any kind of spread left on the counter for days kind of a life. Yes, indeed. Better than Mr. I'm-holier-than-thou's life. Yup… uh. Yeah. Right.

Yohji grinned to the handsome devil looking back at him from the mirror. The Bob Marley song ended and was replaced with the first guitar strains of Lenny Kravitz' "Lady"._ Yeah_, he thought, _this is how things will be this SATURDAY night. Yeah, no going out, just staying PUT in my room innocently. Listening to music. Right. _He stopped his hand as it betrayed him by reaching to the secret drawer under his bed where he hid his stash from prying Omi eyes. _Nope, none of that stuff tonight. Just plain, clean fun with… solitaire. And later, a house of cards! Right! And after that, crossword puzzles! AND large puzzles! Oh Joy! _And he sang out gleefully the lines of the song.

Another person would note that, if one was watching Yohji in his room, there seems to be something off. The way Yohji gleefully indulged in solitaire perhaps. And the extra restraints and locks on the door. And that rather heavy looking wooden dresser placed in front of the windows. And the handcuff that connected Yohji's foot to his bed, which in turn is nailed down to the floor. Especially the fact that it's a Saturday, and Yohji's INSIDE his room, ALONE. Something's off indeed.

Another seemingly inane chapter folks. Reviews are appreciated. REALLY. No kidding. So don't hesitate and review! Hehe.


	3. Fragile Seeming Normalcy Derailed

(Note: usually, if it's in italics with single quotation marks (' ') and between normal fonts, those are thoughts. but by the end of this chapter, the italics with double quotation marks ( " " ) are conversations in the past. Whole paragraphs in italics are a kind of flashback. A single word or a few words in italics in a sentence is/are emphasized.)

_**You don't remember.**_

Morning found him seated before Ken and Omi, nursing a mug of coffee. It wasn't really nursing, not really, because he didn't even once sip the stuff. He merely liked holding something warm between his hands, is all, after last night's... well he really didn't know what happened, he couldn't remember. But this was comforting, this was usual, this was routine for him, after all. He could almost hear himself counting …3…2…

"Kudou."

He glanced up, but he couldn't smile. His mind panicked, it said '_oh no, you have to smile, or else this wouldn't be routine!'_ But his facial muscles were frozen, and took several seconds to follow the brain and ended up with a twisted, pained look. Aya was taken aback.

"…Kudou..." Aya repeated, now a bit unsure. Omi, surprised Aya said something when it was Omi's turn to say something, followed the gaze and ended up echoing Aya's unsure voice, only he said "Yohji-kun?"

'_Smile… smile damn it! Quickly, quickly!' _And Yohji smiled. This made Aya and Omi even more taken aback. This was surprising. This wasn't part of the routine. This wasn't their normally crazy Sunday morning, not with Yohji screwing the script around (not literally, of course. He's not really into inanimate objects). Only Ken seemed to have not taken notice of this, as he stopped eating, slowly looked up to Aya's face, and held his breath, as per usual. When he did this, everyone else seemed to wake up and take this as a cue.

"A..ah… Aya, you promised not to bring your _katana_ in the dining…room…" Omi started, rather lamely. Looks were passed around, and everyone was quite unsure as to how to end this. Ken cleared his throat and rose up to the occasion. He was, after all, the only one prepared to.

"Well, good morning Aya. Are you going to have breakfast with us?"

This question found Aya in surprise, so he didn't give the usual glare (which he gives, even if he isn't even angry). He just nodded, took a seat, and placed his _katana _on his lap. Ken got up to get him a plate, spoon and fork, and his black 'don't-anyone-ever-touch-this-or-else' nondescript mug. Then everyone settled down to eat their slightly confusing breakfast, that is, except for Yohji. He was still wearing that smile that wasn't really a smile, and his hands twitched on either side of the mug.

_**

* * *

It was something you couldn't look away from…**_

_A flash of brilliance filled the room, spilling out from the cracks in the window to the street below. Splintered wood and shattered glass was the noise all throughout. After that came loud silence. Then, a dull sound, like the roar of a locomotive coming to life. It was a sound that made the blood curl of the solitary walking man below. _

He opened his eyes, and quickly shut it when it the morning light blinded it momentarily. '_Where am… oh. I'm in my room. I remember… I remember…'_ and he cringed, cradling his head between his hands as he tried to soften down the voice in his head. He whispered in his thoughts. '_Fuck it, how did I get the mother of all hangovers?'_ He rolled to his side and slowly opened his eyes, adjusting to the blinding light that came from the … '…_shattered window? What the heck…_' he sat up from the floor and looked around, bewildered, to see the wooden drawer flung to the right side of the room, the window all shattered, and his bed askew because it missed one post. The clock beside his bed read 5:31 am.

'_But… but how did this happen? How could anyone have come in? The door was shut, the window nailed down and blocked and I was…' _horror slowly crept on Yohji's features as he looked down his leg, a bit bloodied about the ankle with the handcuff still tightly around it. And below the window, amid shattered glass, was the missing bedpost. _'I… I did THIS?_' His hand automatically went to his face, and touched something that made his skin crawl.

_**And you don't remember or… you don't want to remember?**_

* * *

It was one of the most grueling breakfasts he'd ever had, and funny, because it was just these weeks that he had woken up in time for breakfast on Sunday mornings. Usually he arrived at breakfast time, took a cup of joe, and slept the morning until his afternoon shift. Why did he end up sleeping on _his _bed these Saturday nights? Alone? Yet, exhausted and completely devoid of any memory of what transgressed that night. '_Except for…_' and he shuddered.

Ken had told him that they heard the crash last night, around 11 in the evening. They thought someone was breaking in, even if it was a funny thing to think of, because that's just like going inside a snake pit, they're Assassins, after all. They went to Yohji's door, armed, but they couldn't open it. Oh, they tried, when Aya tried to kick it down he went sprawling on the floor with a hurting foot. Yohji tucked the image away in his mind to use whenever he needed a really good tear-inducing laugh. After he got over that image Ken went on to say that Aya decided to get to your room by the railings outside his window, but then _" …you called out to us and told us that 'everything's fine, just accidentally hit the mirror with a bottle, now whoops why did I say that ha ha, go on then I'm fine'."_

"_I said that?"_

"_Yeah. And we supposed, well, you seemed drunk, you were laughing like crazy, you know like those mad evil villains do in the cartoons, and well… we thought that's what you were last night."_

"_A… mad evil villain in a cartoon?"_

"_Nope, just drunk."_

"_Oh."_

"_And this isn't the first time you broke your mirror. Remember, you broke it before, only not with a bottle but with your fist, you know, after that Ne--"_

_But he stopped listening to Ken, because he was thinking, 'only that my mirror's not broken. And I wasn't drinking.'_

"… _And so we left you like you told us to and we went back to our rooms and there you are. Aya was a bit suspicious though, but then if anyone broke into your room, well, bad luck to them. You've got a right mean kick an' punch when you're drunk you know."_

'_Nobody broke in',_ he mused, in his room now cleaned of rubble the best it can be cleaned, broken window now covered by some cardboard from the stockroom, sitting on his bed propped up by some books and old yellow pages, '…_but maybe… maybe _I_…_ I_ broke out.'_


	4. Going Loony

"Something tells me we're not in Kansas anymore…"

It wasn't much of a secret, but Yohji liked to watch movies not dubbed in Japanese. He even reads from time to time, English novels. He understood the English language just fine, as fine as a half-English half-Japanese young man does. And that's exactly what he is, he tells himself, a half-half. His 'Mumsy'† always told him, "_two halves make a whole, always remember that Yeo-gee." _Yohji's brows wrinkled. He didn't know why his 'Mumsy' gave him a Japanese name she couldn't pronounce without making it sound like a halfway yodel. Probably to make him feel authentic, to make him feel he wasn't what he was- a poor little bastard. But that was years ago, when he was a snotty little kid looking up to his mumsy's concerned green eyes, asking why, why don't I have a daddy like the other kids do?

And so, that was why he borrowed a line from a western movie he watched during those years to describe the predicament he was in right now- knee deep in perfect shit. It would have made him feel better if he had one of those small dogs beside him to say that line to. All he had was Momoe-san's fat tabby cat. He sighed. It looked up at him, and then decided that he wasn't interesting enough and curled up on the floor, purring. He always considered himself a dog person, and in fact had a dog named 'Buster' precisely because the dog wasn't Buster material. It was ironic, but probably that wasn't what he was thinking when he named the dog that afternoon in his 8th year. He just wanted someone else named wrong, just like him. It was terrible of him, he now knows, naming the dog 'Buster' when it should have been 'Pup', because that's what his dog was, a pup cute enough to belong to some little girl instead. But that was what he liked about dogs. They're too simple to care. But they can be great friends, for a little bastard boy living with his mumsy in a country where people don't look like him.

Now cats, they're a different story. They're… well they move gracefully, they don't lap up your face and leave the couch wet with drool. They don't eat your footwear, tug your sleeves constantly for a walk and best of all, do not poop just about anywhere and anytime. But they can look straight to your soul, these cats. They know. That's why Yohji never got the hang of them. He doesn't like being looked at the way a cat does. They'd let you keep them, give them food and warmth and all, but they'd never let you own them. It's as if they had pride. It's like they sneered on the thought of being owned by apes that decided to walk upright. Cats are complex. Cats are more for the likes of Aya, cooped up, solitary, proud, secretive, and always watching you with that hidden sneer you just know they're hiding.

Now Buster's long dead, mumsy's a far way away, and Yohji's just so alone in knee-deep shit.

* * *

"How is… Kudou?" 

Omi stopped himself before he rolled his eyes. Aya had been walking about downstairs, not really doing anything. From time to time, he'd walk up cautiously to Omi or Ken, pretend to not give a damn, and ask them about Yohji while looking at his nails nonchalantly. This was the twentieth time, and though Omi considered his self a patient enough person, the way Aya paces and asks the question was beginning to get on his nerves.

"He's upstairs Aya, alone in his room, just as he was 30 minutes ago."

Aya looked up the stairs with narrow eyes. Omi sighed and stopped typing on his laptop. Aya's just so suspicious of everything! He made a little cough to get Aya's attention. Aya turned to look at him, his face filled with suspicion mixed with something…else. Because of that look, Omi bit back the comment he was about to say. Aya raised his eyebrows in question, and Omi stopped staring at him.

"Weren't you manning the store with Ken?"

"I am."

"Uh… okay." There isn't really anything to answer to that, Aya standing there on the landing with hawk-like stare, as if willing Yohji to suddenly appear at the top of the stairs. _'No'_, Omi scolded himself as he shook his head unbelieving, '_the word caring and Aya in the same sentence does not work! Besides, look at him, he's more suspicious than worried about Yohji-kun! Get a hold of yourself Omi you're just seeing things! Best to rest awhile... to stop seeing things…'_

"Hey, Omi, you see where Aya…" Ken asked aloud as he came into the living room, and then stopped as he saw Aya there, still as a statue. He looked at Omi and mouthed the words 'He's at it again?' Omi nodded his head. They gave each other a look, and Omi was tempted to make circling motions with his finger to his head, but it's not the proper thing to do. So he was relieved when Ken did it himself, mouthing the words 'he's going nuts' for reassurance. Then Ken turned his attention to Aya and said, "In your own time Aya, at your own pace." Ken returned to the shop, leaving Omi alone with a still statue-like Aya to ponder what the heck did Ken mean. Then Aya spoke.

"I'm going to have a word with him."

"With who…" The question died on Omi's lips as he watched Aya climb the stairs with a face of distant resolution. '_Oh well_', he told himself, _'I might as well make me useful…' _he turned to the direction of the shop and started walking _'… seeing as to how everyone's making a loon of themselves.'_ And his face turned from a grimaced look into a standard smile the moment he stepped into the shop. "Hello ma'am, what can I do for you?"

* * *

The sun was now setting, making everything seem to look the color orange. He was still sitting on his bed, back to the door and face looking out of the window (at least, theoretically, if the window wasn't all covered with pieces of cardboard taped together). It had been a long time since he pondered this long and this deep. He had already made the turn to philosophical, and treads the worn path to the question 'why?' He wondered if this is what Aya did every time he was alone in his room, which is often, and if for the sheer length of pondering, did Aya already have the answer to that question. Maybe one day he'd try pondering with Aya, and then they'd compare notes. Of course, he thought, that one day would never come. Most plans he had to spend time with the introvert all fell under the 'maybe one day' category. He felt it unfair that he got along with the kid and Ken, but not with Aya. Mostly it's unfair for Aya. No one should be left all alone. Yohji felt like the Humanitarian for this thought. It's harder when there are people around you, but you still are alone. Just like Aya. 

'_No man is an island Yeo-gee' _His mumsy would quote every time he was down and out. Yeah, he thought, no one _should_ be left all alone. But they _could_ be left all alone. And they _are_. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if all _shoulds _could? He smiled darkly, his face mirthless. _'I'm still a fucking idealist', _he thought,_ 'and that would be the end of me, I know. ' _

_**Not if I can help it.**_

If he had heard it from someone sneaking up on him behind his back and then held a gun to his head, he wouldn't even have moved a muscle in his face. But no one was behind him, his senses told him, and the voice came… from his head. So in the manner of all bewildered, he started looking up and about, trying to find the source of the voice, wide-eyed but tight-lipped. He was an Assassin after all. Assassins don't gape. '_It's just not done_. '‡He mouthed the familiar phrase, calming himself with the voice of his mumsy.

"Who… are you?"

The voice was familiar. It sounded like… his voice, but… in a different way. It's as if his Id began talking to him… '_Oh fuck_,' he thought, '… _am I going crazy_?' He tried a line from a book he read when he was a kid, _'Is that you conscience?' _

'_Me? Nope. I'm still on vacation.'_

'_Oh, good.' _Yohji grimaced, '_my smart-aleck conscience replied. This means…' _His eyes rested on the mirror to his left, and _then_ he gaped. There, on the mirror, was his reflection, only which it didn't gape at him as he was doing. It grinned menacingly, and then it gave him a tiny wave in the form of an elegant hand movement.

_**Surprised?**_

"Something tells me we're not in Kansas anymore..." -Said by Dorothy to Toto, her dog, in _The Wizard of Oz _

† Mumsy because, it's his mom whose English… well, I know you figured it out by yourself, but I just wanted to… make it clear.

‡ The phrase his mumsy used to tell him to explain things. It's an English thing, I believe. They say this to explain why a thing isn't proper to do or to happen. I understand it as a sort of 'just because', but with socio-cultural justifications. Like, 'mumsy why can't I wear this to the high school ball? It's all the rage!', and his mumsy would answer, 'It's just not done.' Or, why don't assassins gape? It's just not done.

Id- you know, from Freudian theory. It's the part of your subconscious that gives in to all that sex and violence.

"Is that you conscience?"-From _The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents_ by Terry Pratchett


	5. When The Talk Backfires

_**Well, are you?**_

'_What the fuck…' _Yohji began, but the insidious voice cut him short. Wow. He never thought he could sound so cool. Insidious… cool sounding word, that. And in spite of himself, he felt a mixed feeling of slow terror and esteem.

_**Ah, ah, ah, no expletives please.**_

"You're not the boss of me." He ground out; he knows a challenge when he sees one. And this, by far, is the most bizarre one he'd ever encounter. An image of him fighting _himself_ flashed in his head, and it wasn't pretty. It was downright ridiculous. He had to take charge of this situation and snap…

"…OUT OF IT!"

Yohji took in a sudden sharp intake of breath, opened his eyes, and saw red- lots and lots of red strands of hair. _'Oh gods… not _him_…' _He groaned aloud, and then scratched his head in a very irritated manner as he slowly met the gaze of humorless piercing eyes. Standing in front of him was Aya. He does not look pleased at all (but then again, he never does). _'First I get creepy head voices and handsome yet disturbing reflections, then _this. _I must have violated some serious Pondering Act Law to deserve this.' _He made sure to keep a mental note to never liberally and spontaneously engage in pondering or any deep-thought thinking unless in the case of life and death. And since his job is a life and death kind of job, he corrected the mental note to say instead 'in the case of very persuasive arguments forcing me to do so', persuasive arguments here meaning 'when push comes to shove'. Or, in other words, 'on pain of a very gruesome and instantaneous death (insert picture here)'. This whole mental note train of thought made Yohji stop for a moment. _'Why is my mind running around in goddamned oblongs? Quick, say something you genius'. _

"So, hey Aya, man, what's up?" was about the most conversational and cool sentence he can come up with given the circumstances. This met a slightly raised eyebrow, which dampened Yohji's ego a bit because it didn't even merit a fully raised eyebrow. _'Tch, critics.' _No one spoke for a very long while. Finally, Yohji decided to be rude, it was _his_ room after all.

"What are you doing in _my _room?" He asked, but with more weariness than exasperation. Aya seemed to consider this, shifted a bit on his footing, and spoke as if he was testing the sound of his sentence. "I was con… no not concerned. More of… how do I put this…worried? No, no, too caring…" And Aya continued on trying to find the _exact_ right word for whatever he was trying to convey, that seemed as if he was fighting it over with himself, and made Yohji rethink his previous encounter with…uh… the mirror Yohji. _Seems the phenomenon is quite normal, in Aya's case. It's just that I bet his reflection never does _that_ to him' _and then he added, '_and I bet his conscience is more subtle and less sarcastic than mine'. _Someone said 'Ah' like an 'Aha!' that missed the light bulb, and Aya finally agreed with himself.

"I was a bit bothered by the fact that you spent the whole day in your bedroom _alone _(Yohji felt an emotion equivalent to a sarcastic 'ow' at this emphasis) and so I thought to check up on you…"

"Look Aya, if you're suspecting me again of having drugs let me tell you…" But his wearied explanation promptly halted when Aya's raised his hand in a silencing manner.

"Don't interrupt me." Aya said in a rather dangerous low voice that made Yohji nod, in spite of himself again, a little meekly. "When I got to your door you were sitting on your bed staring into nothing, not moving at all nor talking, so I went in unbidden. You had a dazed look and your eyes were glassy…" Yohji opened his mouth to say something, and Aya waved his hand firmly and Yohji clamped his mouth shut. "…but you were breathing, rather erratically. I have been trying to wake you up and when I shouted 'Snap out of it' you suddenly came to and there you are." Aya finished this off by putting down his silencing hand with a bit of a flourish, but this was lost to Yohji whose mouth resembled that of a fish out of water, looking bewildered.

"I… wasn't… I was… supposed… there… the mirror…a a-an and-- and then you…" Yohji stuttered, hands pointing to all directions. "I mean…" he stood, gathering his thoughts and calming himself, looked to the mirror hesitantly, then to Aya, then back to the mirror. Well, Aya thought, someone's gone _insalubre_. Then Yohji stopped moving and looked at Aya with his head bent to one side, face full of worried curiosity.

"Hold on… you can actually speak in complete sentences?"

* * *

Meanwhile, downstairs, the two younger Assassins prepared to close the shop as they realized that the other two men wouldn't be thinking of taking their shifts.

"Remember the last time Aya had one of his talks with Yohji?"

"The first and last time?"

"Yeah. Yohji was a right wreck after that."

"Well, Aya wasn't exactly a pretty picture either. Its better they have this talk in Yohji's room, I don't want to be cleaning up broken pots and losing stock flowers again."

* * *

Yohji was pacing the room as Aya, sitting on the bed and becoming rather impatient, watched him.

"Okay okay… so you're saying… I was just sitting on my bed all the time, looking like a zombie?"

Aya rolled his eyes. How he got into this, he wondered. He looked back to Yohji and nodded.

"And there wasn't any… I mean, I wasn't saying anything, not even muttering to the… I mean, to myself? All the while?"

"Yes. Look Yohji…"

"How long did you say you were watching me?"

Aya gave out a short wordless cry of frustration, took Yohji by the collar, and stared the other straight into the eye. "You.Were.Alone.And.Not.Moving.Your.Lips." he said, carefully enunciating every word so that they'll be the verbal equivalent of pointy daggers. Yohji smiled nervously and carefully pried off Aya's hands from his collar, which, by the way, is attached to a very much liked and expensive piece of branded clothing. "O-kay, Aya man, no need to get… physical." Aya gruffly let go of Yohji, who stumbled backwards a bit until he got his balance right. Yohji checked his shirt for any claw marks then looked back at Aya.

"So… how long did you say you were watching me?"

"ARGH! This is pointless!" And Aya stood up and went, more or less. Leaving Yohji alone with his questions and more confused than he was before he started pondering. Maybe, just maybe, Aya was right. He was alone. He wasn't talking to anyone. He was sitting there like a statue. There wasn't any creepy voice floating about the room. Maybe, maybe he's just turning paranoid. Or maybe he was actually schizophrenic. He could be, couldn't he? He tried to remember whether his mom told him of any relative that had a history of schizophrenia, or even of a far-flung cousin twice removed who's a complete nutcase. Maybe it's the room, haha, yeah maybe that's it. Maybe he snorted one too many magic dust up his nose, yeah, that'd be feasible, right? Right? All those drinks one too many now back with a vengeance. Wasn't there a documentary about alcohol abuse hinting at brain malfunction? Or… And Yohji believed the reasons he came up with, slowly, making himself accept them. That is, until he heard the low deep chuckle.

_**You don't seriously believe that, do you?**_

Insalubre- French for 'insane'. But, don't trust my French. Please correct me if you feel like I should be corrected, and I'll be grateful (really I will).


	6. Freud, Antropomorphs, and Detective Work

†Black outs during Saturday nights

†Almost complete amnesia next Sunday morning

†Mouth and chin cove---

†Wrecked room

†how the heck did I get out?

†answer to that: by ripping off my bedpost and smashing

the window

†did I jump down? That's insane!

† my mirror reflection is this suave yet frightening me who

talks to **me, **the real one… how weird is that?

† What's weirder is that Aya says I wasn't talking, just sitting

**zombie-like**… (is weirder a correct word? Hmm…)

**† But **the reflection came back and corrected that for me. So **it**

was (uncomfortably) **real**

**† **maybe even the self in the mirror is afraid--- _apprehensive_ of Aya?

**† I miss Buster… **

† Momoe-san's fat tabby cat is watching me **I know it**…

and he hisses at me every time…

†Why does Aya want to kill me every

goddamned Sunday Morning?

Yohji stopped writing and looked down on his list so far, written in his rounded script in English on his old P.I. pocket notebook. He chewed his pen absent-mindedly. Then he took his pen and wrote down again.

†**Why does Aya want to kill me every **

**goddamned Sunday Morning?**

He stopped writing, and looked quite satisfied. When he read it again, he frowned heavily when his eyes met the crossed out third line. No, he didn't want to think about it, but his mind was more pigheaded than he is, and it summoned the memory, giving Yohji the same feeling, he had the first morning he encountered it: a wrenching in the gut and the need to throw up. He hurriedly looked away from the list and stared at the old ceiling that had certain spots significantly darkening, because Yohji smoked indoors. Well, in his room anyway. So he focused his attention to one darkened spot and tried to form pictures from it. It almost looked the shape of a cartoon mouse. Satisfied with this, he returned to the list, now that his stomach is settled. His brow creased as he went over the list, and rehearsed the questions in his head over and over again. After a while, he wrote in the other page of the notebook his conclusions.

† **Aya suffers from unfulfilled anal fixation (Freud) as a kid and **

**needs to get laid.**

† anyone who decides to have sex with him runs the risk of being criticized

and severely berated, glared at and corrected while doing the deed.

That is **not **the way to go.

He also thought that the person willing enough to do it again with Aya afterwards deserves a medal of valor or a whack on the head. But he no longer wrote it down, because that was just an opinion. He scribbled down after the last line.

----Thus, Aya's apparent lack of sex and the resulting crankiness from this.

So he was finished with his dissertation of Aya. It isn't that hard to work out, everything roots from and boils down to sex… and penis envy, if one is to take the word of Old Man Freud, the horniest and most sexist man who ever lived. Away, back to the more important thing at hand. Except for the "I miss Buster", all things written down must be part of one thing. Now, when did this start happening? It was a weekend thing. Starts from sundown Saturday and ends sunrise Sunday. Ken had said, "blah blah blah this past **month**?" So that's four weekends and counting. The latest weekend, just last Saturday, he tried to stop himself from going out. Something told him he needed extra care for that, so the extra padlocks and whatnots. He didn't know what or who told him, he just _knew._ This, now that it's brought up, is weird. He decided to write that down on the observation page. The voice started talking to him yester… he stopped.

He looked back at the mirror, as if willing the reflection to do something out of the ordinary, like wave to him or make a face or something. He _knows _that voice. He_ knows _it's been talking to him way before yesterday. Only, yesterday it was blatant conversation. He _knows. _He _feels _it. The whispers. The fleeting sentences. It had always been there.

_Of course, I've always been here._

It wasn't as loud as yesterday, and his reflection wasn't smiling deviously at him, but it was the self-same voice. It was talking to him _now_. Yohji stood and closed his bedroom door, went back to his bed, and snarled.

"WHO ARE YOU?"

_Why, don't you know who I am?_

"I'm betting my pants you're not my fucking conscience."

'_He-ey, ooouch. I might just be a concept of morality expressed by your mind in an anthropomorphic way for your inadequate reasoning to be able to grasp it, but I do have feelings too you know. I _am _conscience after all… now tell me you're sorry."_

For a while, everything, even inside Yohji's head, was quiet. The anthropomorphic conscience gave a tiny cough.

"O-okay, right. Aren't you supposed to be in vacation?"

Yohji seemed to imagine his conscience's hurt face before it walked out indignantly out of his… mind. Uh. Yohji knew he should've lain off the LSDs when tripping on Sesame Street reruns.

"You're not another anthrof… anthropor… what my conscience said, are you?"

_No. _

"Oh. Great." He said sarcastically. "So what are you then?"

_I AM you._

Freud had given stages of development for the person according to certain parts of the body. The anal stage is when the child tries to potty train and controls his/her anal activities. If a child does not overcome this stage, he/she develops an anal fixation- he/she becomes fixated on control, hence the term "anal" (ex. You're so anally neat). This has nothing to do with the sexual connotation one might think of. I assume Yohji has an oral fixation of some sort… haha.

Well, he might not be THE most, but he certainly was a sexist. The horny part, well, it was the Victorian era. Everyone was sexually repressed, raging hormones all about town. No offense to all the Freudian disciples or fans to have read this.

 remember in "A Snippet Of Things" chapter one, Ken asked Yohji how come Aya always wanted to kill him blah blah blah. You can look it up.


	7. Meet Humanity's Selfappointed Saviour

I'd like to thank LeolaTaylor (is that correct?) for reviewing. I feel touched that you found the story brilliant. Yes, I guess Yohji's gone insane somewhere in the fic, if they all weren'tof a degree of insanity in the first place.

* * *

Now, for the moment, allow yourself to leave the company of a befuddled Yohji and his companions (neither of whom are physically present _outside_ his head) and watch a recollection of seemingly trivial yet truly pivotal events. The date was March 5, a Saturday morning, the start of the month of Yohji's troubles. It started out like some of their Saturdays- with a brainstorm session in the Mission Room that doubled as Aya's Room Away From the Others, Yohji's Secret Smoking Room, Omi's Quiet Project Spot, and Ken's Big Screen T.V. For Big Games Room. It is purely coincidental that none of them ever met there coincidentally.

"Look, man, we don't even need to brainstorm for this. We go in, we kill the guy, and the job's done." Yohji said with a tone of finality and irritation, pounding his fist once on the table for added emphasis. Aya gave him a look of pure disdain. Yohji met it with his own, "What, what? You want a piece of me, _fearless leader?_" he baited, but Aya wasn't taking it. He sighed theatrically and flopped down on the sofa, managing to hit Aya on the head with a seemingly accidental flailing arm. Aya stared on, but one can see the veins coming out. Then Aya turned to Omi, who sat to his left and _accidentally_ elbowed Yohji on his side. Of course, it being Aya's elbow, it considerably hurt a lot.

"OW." Yohji cried out angrily.

Aya turned to him and smiled without humor, akin to the mirthless smiles animals do when they're threatening rivals with the baring of very sharp teeth. Then he put his hand on his chest and showed a face of mock concern. "Oh, did I _hurt_ you? Pardon me, I didn't know." Yohji narrowed his eyes and fumed silently. He heard the last words of sentence as if Aya shouted it out (though Aya did no such thing, but Yohji _knows_) which were "…I didn't know you were such a pathetic weakling. Had I known I would have lessened my jab, all the way down to sissies and flower-shorted pansies level'." They continued the staring match until Yohji's face became a look of indignant shock when he saw the really, really mud-in-your-face-haha smug smile Aya flashed him.

"Oh, oh, hah, it's on!" Yohji cried in the manner of all people gone competitive in a game- the jeering, taunting kind of expressions like "that all you got?" or "Who's your daddy, huh, who's.your.DADDY!"

But that is not the pivotal event that you are supposed to be told of. Yohji is on the edge and wanting to pick a fight that morning because it's a Saturday and they have to stay in the house to plan and afterwards kill somebody. And this somebody wasn't even an _anybody_, to Yohji's opinion. He felt degraded at having to take out trash like that. Why does Kritiker think they have to send their very best on a goddamned Saturday (for crying out loud!- Yohji) to take out some guy who works in a rented out basement in the backwoods and who doesn't even have the proper idiotic henchmen for them to hack away at? The man was a loon. That was all there is. And damned if Yohji was going to stay with the rest of the group concocting some plan they don't even need to take out the most inconsequential pseudo-villain (I mean, come on, he doesn't even have the signature evil cackle in his entire puny body! What's a villain without his signature evil cackle? - Yohji) they were ever tasked to kill. Why waste time for a supposedly "evil genius" who couldn't even afford the proper henchmen and who doesn't have the evil villain laugh? Let the loony bin take care of loons out and about, that's what Yohji thinks. So he got up, left in a huff to smoke outside, and appeared only until the appointed time for their clockwork precision job, decidedly missing out every single detail discussed about their target that could've saved him his troubles in the future.

* * *

When you look at Jacques Jeumans, you get the idea that the man had been, in his youth, an athletic and good-looking person. He stood a respective 6"1 height, and in all manners looked like a gentleman save for the slight stoop. Just overlook the crumpled slept-in lab coat that is now significantly grayish instead of the nondescript white it started out being. And never mind the curious colors and textures of stains the lab coat has. His brown silken hair of youth now was an unkempt and somewhat greasy overgrowth. His once clear blue-grey eyes, now hid behind glasses, turned bleary. The once smiling lips now in an indefinite frown, brows continuously locked and cheeks a bit sunken. Even his hands are stained, nails forgotten. All for the love of science. ALWAYS for the love of science.

Jacques was a respected scientist working for laboratory experiments concerning biology, human anatomy and the DNA. He had come to Japan to work for a grant under the Prime Minister's son, a study of genetics and possibilities of manipulating the DNA. It started out harmlessly enough, the extensive studies about the human gene. He was provided for excellently. His boss (the Prime Minister's son) regarded him highly and his colleagues, far from being petty jealous rivals (they were scientists of course, everyone was doing it for the love of science), did so to. But there was something missing, Jacques knew in his heart of hearts. His dream is not here, he thought.

Then a year after, the changes began. Jacques hardly noticed it anyway, too consumed in his own world of DNA strands and large possibilities to notice his colleagues one by one failing to come to work, or the others who threw off their white lab coats muttering lines akin to "this is madness!" or "I will not voluntarily cause the destruction of mankind." His boss had announced the real intention of the research, and he remembered the nervous flutter of his heart of hearts. Yes, his dream, he thought, he dreams the same dream my heart does.

He stopped his hands and stood without moving for a while. He remembered that summer in his youth, when he has yet to meet his life's mistress (science, who else?), and the first time he encountered the Myth. The myth was this: humans want to live forever. It was simple as that. But there were many details. His brows met shortly, as he tried to remember whether he wanted this immortality or not. He shook his head, this was trivial, whether he wanted it for himself or not, he wanted it for all Mankind. Yes, that was his Dream: the perfection of man to prepare for their immortality. He smiled a guileless smile. He was running off with his thoughts again, he warned himself. He must return to his work immediately.

And there, beneath his worktable, lay a corpse.

* * *

It was certainly not his day, Yohji thought, as he moved on all fours in the bewilderingly tall green things that grew on the lawn of the abandoned building where their target lived in.

"Who knows what kind of shit grows in here?" he said, a bit loudly, into his intercom. The electric buzz came before Omi's exasperated voice. "Just do your part, Balinese, and QUIETLY, please?" "Well," he replied, not about to give up, "YOU can say that, sitting in the van all comfy and…" The sharp sound that came into his ear made him wince a little, and he heard Aya's voice cut in. "Balinese. _Shut. Up_." Yohji rolled his eyes and made a dour face, sure that even Aya wasn't _that_ omnipotent to see him somewhere in the thick overgrowth. The intercom hissed in his ear, and Ken's voice, heard by all four, softly said "Siberian in position." The four Assassins, as if on cue, nodded.

* * *

Yes, he crowed, it's working! Perfection at last! Jacques Jeumans, after undergoing his own experiment four hours ago, felt it taking effect. He could see his skin fast becoming so white as to seem transparent, veins mapping out his arm as he watched it with silent joy. He walked towards the back of the laboratory, when he heard the voice.

_**Where are you going?**_

He looked up, turned about, trying to see the owner of the voice. "Who… who are you?" The voice seemed vaguely familiar. As if, it was the same voice of his thoughts, only more… sinister. He shivered. He whipped round and his eyes fell on a body that was still moving, bound hands and feet, voice muffled by a gag. Then he remembered what he was going to do. The body, as if regaining consciousness, writhed nervously, and tried to scream when the doctor came close to it. Jacques Jeumans bent down, and trailed a caressing finger over the now wet cheek. "Relax… I'm not going to hurt you…" His voice was soothing, as if he was talking to a child, and for a moment, the person- a girl of eighteen years- stopped moving about, forgetting what she had seen him do to the other girls before her. She cried uncontrollably now, trying to talk to the doctor, convince him to let her go. The good doctor clucked. "Poor child, why are you so frightened?" Then he took off the gag, and almost immediately, the girl sobbed in between pleading.

"Oh, please… please let me go… oh… I promise! I promise I won't… tell… please… sir…."

Jeumans' eyes narrowed slightly, and he fought to stop himself from slapping the gibbering girl across the mouth. _There is nothing to tell!'_ He screamed in his head, _Nothing! Nothing! These… these good-for-nothings!_ _Ingrat fille! Sale mortel! They cower from me as if I was a villain, a thug, a good-for-nothing! Can they not comprehend the gift I bestow upon them? I, Jacques Jeumans, Saviour of Mankind?'_ He stopped. He shouldn't be angry. Angry was what mortals' do, to cope with their mortality. An immortal like him, angry? No, it is unheard of! He smiled again. The girl's eyes widened even more. She was shaking with fear. This was how the man looked, before he… before he… her eyes darted quickly to the bodies hurriedly stashed underneath the worktable, and she closed her eyes immediately.

"Please…" she whispered, sobbing soundlessly.

The caressing hand became a firm grip on her chin, forcing her to look up into what she would last remember- the eyes of a lunatic.

"Relax, child, I will not hurt you…" His face calmed into the face of a doting father, but his eyes remained the same. The girl couldn't look away. "I have finished with the testing, perfection has come! Now, do not fear, hush little one, hush. _Immortalité,_ child, it has come! The perfection of the human body! No longer should man cower and fear death!" He stopped, lost his smile, felt the trembling face held in his vice-like grip.

_**Well…**_

"Well…" The doctor repeated, unconsciously, what the sinister voice said.

_**For some, the fear remains…**_

"For some, the fear remains…" The girl, now perfectly helpless, tries fruitlessly to push farther back, away from the looming doctor's face.

…_**for you see, child…**_

"…for you see, child…" he smiled, and the girl froze, like a deer before the wolf.

… _**gods require blood…**_

"…gods require blood…" he closed in, closer, closer, until only a hair's breadth away from the youth's arched neck. She could not scream, his eyes held her mind in a complete hold.

…**_because they cannot bleed._**

"…because they cannot bleed." He finished, completely consumed by the _other,_ by the _voice,_ as he descended upon her. Her hands, gripping, clenching and unclenching erratically, slowed. And after a moment, the moving stopped, the hands lay, limply, bound together behind her back. And as he walked away, wiping his mouth on the back of his coat's sleeve, the girl's body slumped, completely lifeless.

Another life taken for the love of science and the salvation of Man. Always for that.

_**Yes, Jacques, for the love of science.**_

And Jacques found himself nodding.

* * *

Ungrateful girl! Filthy mortal!

 Obviously, immortality

taken from the animated movie, "The Road to El Dorado" (you know, the part where that Tzekelkan guy found out Tulio and Miguel weren't gods? Cool line. Delivered quite less ominous though, to my opinion. It had the potential for a full-blooded shiver)

I have nothing against science. I do not know what I was writing down about the laboratory stuff. Search me- I'm no scientist. Not all scientists are lunatics, mind you. This one's just a bit over the edge. Like that son of Takatori. Jacques Jeumans' boss. A friend suggested the name to me. We intended it to be more comical, I intended for the character to be more comical, but it turned a bit… serious. Oh well. I guess you can guess what the experiment's about. Easily. (sigh) I just can't write suspense that well. By the way, DO NOT trust my French. Anyone who would like to correct me, please do so.

Oh, and the "hearts of hearts" thing? Gosh, I've been reading it from so many books (I think from "The Death of Che Guevarra" to some children's book to a Sandman issue) I don't know who to credit. Guess it's a universal thing. Tell me; if you know, and I'll happily credit it to them (Don't want to be plagiarizing without a disclaimer now).


	8. Tapdancing to The Sound of File Cabinets

It was not as bloodcurdling as torture chambers go, but they weren't that far gone to the deep end for them to be numb to it. A torture chamber is a torture chamber no matter how many victims there were, whatever size, shape, and smell it was. The smell was bad enough. Trained eyes surveyed the room, counting the bodies, checking for possible dangers. None. Not one bodyguard, not one hidden door. Its official, the man's a loon, Yohji thought. He shook his head in slight bewilderment, despite himself. Didn't the man know his being hunted down? A guy couldn't just kill several kids without knowing some force'd eventually want him.

_Except, of course, if he is a total loon. Then the man wouldn't really care, because his concept of reality and the now is different.'_

Yohji mentally cursed his smart-aleck conscience. This was not the time for semi-witty remarks. This was the time to hold one's breath and dive into the scene of a crime done more than twenty times. In unique ways, he added to himself. His eyes darted towards the position where Aya should be, and a slight movement invisible to the untrained eye from the latter was his cue. They entered the target area, as stealthily as shadows.

Yohji flattened himself to the wall, as much as he disliked it. Who knows what lived in the grime that clung to the wall? You couldn't culture bacteria on a wall, could you? He stopped, regulated his breathing, and noiselessly readied a stretch of wire for a very personal garrote. Sometimes he wished he'd taken that gun off the "Choose Your Weapon Wall" back then, instead of this fashionable yet sometimes too dramatic a weapon. Bloodstains are a bitch. _Damn that novel,_ he thought, _making me think garrotes are so cool._ Steady now, he freed his mind of thoughts, as he waited for the target to come out of the bathroom.

He looked at Aya, standing somewhere close, ready to back him up. Ken was going about the room, checking for any survivors. The one slumped by the wall opposite the worktable was the most recent, yet the most puzzling. Most of the bodies indicated blood poisoning, syringes still left on the arm full of some ooze of a substance. Ken had taken samples of it, to include in the report. But the recent one had no injection at all. Her body was clear of any wounds, but for some odd wound near her breast. Ken sorely wanted to take all those bodies out of the stinking mess of a room, all those corpses of women no older than twenty years. There were some hardly recognizable, badly decayed. His bugnuks sheathed and unsheathed. He wanted to make the monster pay. Badly. But it was up to Yohji to do that.

_Oh gods, he's taking_ _so loooong. Is he taking a crap? Fuck, he better wash--…_ Yohji's thoughts automatically stopped when the hinges of the door creaked.

* * *

On the way home, Yohji blew and sucked the blood from the wound on his left arm. The loon had bit him. Hard. He remembered how strong the man seemed, when he looped the wire around the target's neck. The vise-like grip, and of course, the sharp pain when the man bit him, he remembered. A man in his forties, not too shabby a built, tall, definitely Caucasian… but the lifestyle lead by a man like that should at least have deteriorated the strength… and the sharp teeth, he thought bitterly. More sensing than seeing the struggle, Aya intervened with a nice clean swoop of a sword. Even when the man was in two, the upper body, particularly the mouth, still clung to Yohji's arm, which disgusted him for some reason. Aya took the head by his hands and pried it from Yohji. It would have looked funny, if it didn't look disturbing in the first place. They were technically traveling incognito, Ken driving the battered old pest control van, disguise cap pulled down low and chewing gum to look genuine. The rest sat on cold steel in the back, careful of snaking wires that ended to Omi's laptop. Aya eyed him warily.

"You shouldn't be doing that."

Yohji shrugged, and continued to suck the blood from his wound, which he afterwards bit to stop the blood. Aya watched him do so, face quite impassive until he shifted his gaze towards… well, towards nothing. That was how it was with Aya- when he wasn't glaring at anything, he was still glaring. Yohji wrapped his arm with some cloth he found in the emergency first aid kit in the van that contained two strips of band-aid, the cloth, and about three cotton balls. _So much for fucking first aid_. The travel home was insignificant; it was later in his room that things became curious. Of course, Yohji remembered nothing of that.

* * *

And now, let us bring our horizons back to Yohji's new current dilemma, which is to ferret out the folder of information about the hit just recounted. He couldn't just waltz up to Omi's room and ask for it because it would cause suspicion, he hardly read the mission folders when needed, so why now? And raising an Assassin's suspicion, and an Assassin that is Omi, is kind of like tripping yourself up purposefully. The pain of the pavement rising to meet you (and not in the kind, Irish blessing's way) might go away, but the burning embarrassment you felt would always be there, haunting you. And with suspicion, the moment may physically pass, but the eyes will always be watching you from now on (with Omi they were probably watching you even before you tripped yourself, but just harmless note taking).

Yohji imagined Omi's mind as rows and rows of endless filing cabinets. Not a computer, but filing cabinets that are susceptible to nothing- fire, earthquake, what-have-yous. Computers lay prey to viruses. They crash. Not filing cabinets. Not Omi's mind. And every little thing he saw, any little thing at all, he imagined Omi file it away to a cabinet with that thing's name on it. Safekeeping maybe, future references definitely. _Asking Omi, definitely out of the list._ In the end, it was a no-brainer really, Yohji thought as he crept down the hallway and slowly turned the knob of Omi's door with a gloved hand. It's something he does for a living anyway. Just that now he's doing it to an associate.

Stealing information from any other goon's hideout, even the ones with the infrared sensors 24 hours on, killer firewalls and mind crunching secret passwords, and that really slow download processes those computers always seem to have when everything's going like a suspense movie (cue some suspense movie theme) now all seems like a walk in the park to Yohji. _But just borrowing without permission some old mission folder that's probably due to be thrown away anyway from Omi is the real motherfucker_, Yohji concluded as he sat down innocently on the soft bed, giving Omi a look of "Me, what did I do?" Omi in turn gave him a look of "Oh, come on." They stayed like that for a while, until Yohji smiled and clapped his hands.

"Look, Omi-boy, you caught me. I was going to spring a prank on you, but you're just way too good for an old bastard like me. Well, congratulations kid." He stood up and was about to walk towards Omi and pat the kid on the back, when Omi somehow spirited a rather battered folder from somewhere and held it up.

"Looking for this, _old bastard?_"

Yohji's jaw fell just a little, for just a fraction of a second, but Omi saw it and Yohji knew Omi saw it. He is definitely busted, he thought, so he sat back down on Omi's rather soft bed and watched himself trip on his own feet to the sound of the clicking file cabinets.

* * *

Somewhere below, Ken wonders where everybody has gone.

* * *

"So you still won't tell me why you need this?"

Yohji shook his head firmly. Omi let him off easily, in the _meantime_, but Yohji still won't tell Omi why he needed the mission folder. He couldn't jus tell the kid that a _voice_ hinted to him to look up the mission folder for a hit a month ago because he's been having the strangest Saturday nights and crazier Sunday mornings, now could he? Besides, Omi won't believe him anyway.

"I swear kid, if I could tell you, I would. But I can't. So I won't. Sorry."

Omi eyed him suspiciously. "You're not working for some other agency, are you?" Yohji sighed. "No, Omittchi, I'm not." Omi's nose wrinkled at the nickname. Yohji had to smile; the kid was still a kid after all. Yohji stood up, took the folder from Omi and leaned against the door. He knew he'd feel like an ass after what he's going to do, but he has to, if only for his sanity. He stopped and marveled at the irony of that sentence. Him, sane? Hah! Thesmart-aleck conscience alone warrants his insanity.

"Okay kid, listen. You don't ask me why I need this, and I won't ask _you_ why you haven't disposed of this information yet."

Omi's eyes widened and Yohji felt a tug at his heart. _Aw man, not the look!_ Omi, although a superb tactician and a head full of file cabinets, still had emotional blue eyes he has yet to master and now his face crumpled a bit as he looked away.

"I did. I burned the copy, as per protocol."

"Yeah, but you have a photocopy of it." Yohji mentioned, waving the folder in his hand. "And you know how Aya is with protocol; he's a stickler to S.O.P's if you please. I would know- I have been the audience of his many lectures about it."

Silence for a while, then a whisper from the boy.

"He worked for… Masafumi, Yohji. I… just wanted to know…"

Yohji raised other hand and butted in. "Yeah, I said I won't ask, right? Don't worry, my lips," he made a zipping motion with his hand across his mouth, "are sealed." Then he gave a boy a wink, who significantly lightened up. Omi nodded, and it took a while before he smiled, and when he did, it was a smile of gratefulness. Before Yohji was completely out the door, Omi asked him again.

"You sure you don't want to tell me about it?"

"Sure I'm sure kiddo. I'm Yohji the great. Of course, I'm sure. When have I ever lied to you?"

Omi acted as if he was thinking, exaggeratedly stroking his chin. "Hmm, just about every time?"

Yohji replied with a pose of mock indignation. "Okay, the next time you ask me how babies are made, I'll tell you the whole truth. Assassin's honor."

"WHAT? I never asked you that!" Yohji smirked. "Oh, just get out Yo-tan!" Yohji saw Omi stick his tongue out before the door closed and he was once again reminded that Omi was, after all, a kid.

_And if he wants to study every single mission folder that has any inkling to his past, then let him._ Yohji thought, as he strode purposefully towards the stairs.

* * *

Mario Puzo's The Godfather. You know in the ending where the traitor was garroted from the back of the passenger seat of the car? That scene. 


	9. Going Steady

The door opened to a quite harassed looking Aya who went straight to the sink for long gulps of tap water. Ken, blissfully unmindful even if the apocalypse was to happen at the very moment, noted quietly that here was one of them, and thank goodness. The TV show Ken was watching segued into a newsflash report where a perky, pink-suited (fashion abomination, to Aya's opinion), twenty something woman filled in the two Assassins with the latest in the news.

"… _where a body of a young woman is found. There appears to be no visible attack marks save for a wound on the left side of the chest that the police has noted to be the same wounds found in the earlier dead bodies found this month…_"

Aya felt as if his ears perked like those of hounds whose sensitive ears detect the slightest movement from a bush. He walked then stood behind the sofa where Ken sat and watched the rest of the news.

"…the victims so far are an old lady, a shoe-shine boy, a thirty year old businessman and now this twenty-six year old post graduate student found in all different places …"

With narrowed eyes, Aya felt his mind coming to a conclusion. He muttered, "Hello, what's this?" as if he found something interesting.

"… _the coroner confirmed the death of the previous three victims as having occurred three days before the bodies were found which makes it a Saturday. The police have yet to solve the cases of the three earlier bodies. There had been a rumor that the bodies plus the present one found today and also confirmed to have been dead since Saturday are all victims of one serial killer…"_

"But there's hardly any pattern to the choosing of the victims." Ken noted. Aya 'hned' in agreement. Then Aya commented, "But there is a pattern to the killing. In this case, the serial killer finds the victim as inconsequential." The too perky reporter was now interviewing an investigating officer who was trying to dispel the fear of a serial killer on the loose.

"_But then sir, how do you explain the curious wound found on the left side of the chest on all the bodies?"_

"So, you're saying that there's a killer out there who started killing just this month, and who only kills on a Saturday without leaving any visible marks save for a wound on the chest…"

"Left side of the chest." Aya corrected.

"… okay, left side of the chest," Ken continued, " who chooses random victims and dumps them in random places, and leaves no evidence and no hint of a motive whatsoever?" Ken looked up to Aya, who just nodded grimly. Ken shrugged his shoulders. "Okay. We've met with weirder ones. Think the _agency_ would be looking into this?" Aya cocked his head to one side, considering Ken's question. Then a moment later, he replied. "Well, if this is just a case of a serial killer, probably not. But if this is going to tie up with a larger, organized crime kind of sort, they probably will."

They continued watching the news report until it concluded, and Aya made for the stairs. Ken, as if suddenly remembering, shouted out to Aya who was in mid-step.

"By the way, where've you been?"

"Reconnaissance."

"Oh? For a new mission?"

But Aya was already upstairs, walking towards his room. There's no need to tell Ken for what he had been out for, he thought, and there's no need to remind him also that the wound of the victims on the news were something they'd already seen. But before he entered his room he stopped and then leaned back to look at Yohji's door. It was slightly ajar. Aya discreetly looked around before he walked over to Yohji's door and noiselessly pushed the door slightly wider to see that no one's inside. Putting the door back the way it was, he looked around suspiciously, then turned towards the other stairs at the end of the hallway leading out into the rooftop.

* * *

Yohji couldn't believe what he was reading. He didn't want to believe. Here in his hands, in read and re-read photocopied and noted, highlighted and doodled on paper, was the key to all the shit he's been having. 

"Kudou."

Almost jumping, Yohji turned around even if he didn't need to see the person to know who it was. Only one of them insisted on calling him by his last name. And only one of them had that kind of 'could've-been-sexy-if-not-so-icy' voice. He grimaced at an oncoming Aya with a determined set jaw.

"Oh gods, he wants to talk to me…" Yohji muttered to himself, and made a half-prayer, half-plea to any merciful creature that happened to be on prayer duty in heaven today. He stopped himself from blurting out 'what do you want from me now?' and changed it for the more polite

"Hey Ayan. Whaddaya want?"

Aya's left eye twitched almost imperceptibly at the nickname and Yohji grinned a little at this.

"Kudou, we have to…" he stopped, saw the mission folder, and then gestured to it. "What's that?" Aya asked, suspicion tingeing his voice. Yohji held up the folder and casually looked at it, as if it was of no import. "What, this?" Aya sighed his long-suffering sigh that he usually uses in conversations with idiots like Kudou. "Yes." "Oh…" Yohji grinned sheepishly, "…this. Well, it's nothing. Why do you ask?" Aya held his gaze for a moment, then 'hmphed', knowing that when Yohji was like this then the man really wasn't telling even if you castrated him then and there. So he settled to sitting down on the roof beside Yohji, who promptly scooted a bit away from him, either to give him room or just get away. Probably both, but Aya put it to being one of those inconsequential facts.

"Kudou…" Aya repeated, looking Yohji in the eye, "… we _have_ to talk."

This exact scene gave Yohji a feeling of when some of his casual girlfriends sat him down and looked him in the eye the same way Aya did, with the same determination, and the same line "We _need_ to talk." This is usually followed by Yohji's callous "sorry babe, but I don't do serious relationships". The very fact that this was happening now to him but with AYA made him feel a great deal uncomfortable.

Yohji gave Aya a look of dread then asked, "You're not going to ask me to go steady with you, are you?"

Aya's face remained the same, determined yet emotionless, and if he thought that Yohji was a right well idiot, he hid it well. He answered a casual and noncommittal "no" to Yohji's absurd question. Yohji visibly relaxed as he "aahed", but some doubt remained in him.

"So what is this all about?"

Aya is known to be brutally straight-to-the-point. He spares no one and foregoes polite euphemisms and half-truths. There is even an urban legend about him that said he would tell an emotionally unstable pregnant woman who was just left by her jerk of a boyfriend that yes, she was fat and looking rather ugly at this point. And that kids cringe from him because he'd tell them that there is no Santa Claus, and that Barney the dinosaur is just a big violet bullshit. Not that he was malicious; he just wasted no scruples on words. So when Yohji asked him what all of that was about, he saw no reason to beat around the bush.

"Are you murdering anyone on Saturday night?"

* * *

"...fashion abomination."--contrary to popular belief, Aya can judge fashion. He's just not keen on buying himself clothes because it's a waste of precious money.

"...the agency..."--Ken meant Kritiker, of course.

"...he uses for dealingwith idiots like Yohji."-- That's to Aya's opinion. Whether or not Yohji _is_ an idiot is one I'd rather not comment on. My sister happens likes him.

"There is even an urban legend about his..."--This is, of course, just an urban legend. Aya, though brutally honest, has tact and timing, which puts him a step higher from the gregarious Ken, gregarious being stretched to the farthest of synonyms in this case.

"Barney...is just a big violet bullshit."--Barney isn't bullshit. I'm just not taken into him. I rather like Bert from Sesame Street better. There's just something wrong with the color clashing, singing, unidentified specie of dinosaur. And the Santa Claus quip, well, let's just say belief in him varies.


	10. Feelings and Halftruths

It must be said that Yohji has been thinking of the horrid possibilities of where that _bloo_… that "Saturday Night Hangover" came from. And unless he has taken to drinking _Bloody Mary's_ that have now acquired the words metallic and viscous as new adjectives, and are drunk in a manner which it dries around the mouth, down the chin all the way to the neck the following morning, then he didn't want to think about JUST WHAT HAPPENS _REALLY_ in between blanked-out consciousness during the weekend (and whether there _were_ _really_ those kind of _Bloody Mary's_). There was something on the telly (or was it on the radio he heard) he's come across, relating the murder of some person one Saturday night. And then another murder, just like the first bit, and then another… and another…

So he really didn't need Aya cutting in on his revelation' time to tell him something he wished he hadn't had anything to do with…

"Are you murdering anyone this Saturday night?"

The stillness that followed would have deterred most hearts. But living with Aya for several years has staunched Yohji's heart, so in answer to such a question posed Yohji gave such a bewildered smile and a light laugh. In other words, he gave himself away, but in a more discreet way than most people would.

"A-ha ha, why, Aya that's the funniest thing you've ever said…" then, like quicksilver Yohji's face changed into a combination of wary, conspiratorial apprehension and wide-eyed honesty tinged with fear (imagine that if you could), and said in such a low voice a person other than Aya would have had to strain to hear: "Why do you ask?"

Aya looked over Yohji's face, judged the confusion of expressions on it, and decided to help the poor idiot out. A look like that, Aya reasoned to himself, would be a trifle hard to fake. He folded his hands primly on his lap, sat back and looked up to the sky now a war of colors. Yohji would've slapped him like silly and shout that this was not the time to play the coy maiden by the sheer force of agitation within him, but he thought against it, and waited for whatever Aya had to say.

"I had a feeling."

The older man's face moved closer, emotions at the very edge. When Aya made no move and stayed silent, Yohji's face fell. "That's it...? That's all you have to say. You just _had a feeling?_"

Aya wanted to say, "of course not you idiot. I'm waiting for _you_ to say something first" but he stayed his more than often sharp tongue, tilted his head a little towards Yohji's direction so that he looked like a calculated Botticelli portrait of some haughty, young Florentine man. Yohji sighed. He guessed he had to spill the beans, else, Aya won't tell him anything he knows. It's always hard for a man to confess anything to a fellow, much less a fellow like Aya, but Yohji then again thought, well, if anyone can keep a secret, that'd be this guy. He gave Aya a wary look.

"I trust you can keep a secret?"

Aya gave the slightest nod. Yohji slumped, felt for the mission folder beside him, and handed it to the other man without looking his way.

_Jacques Jeumans_

_Male, 40, Caucasian_

_Scientist_

_Contacts from France say that target is concerned about experimenting for the solution to mortality. Search of target's childhood home reveal target's early fascination with mythology and occult. Nothing out of the ordinary._

_Informant reveals at age 25 target had a falling out with his scientist mentor, leaving France and traveling to east Europe, studying cases of lycanthropy. Later searches reveal notebooks containing what is understood as notes from the aforementioned travel. Target has extensive knowledge of the myth and, from what is deduced, believes in the myth…._

… _worked for Takatori Masafumi, son of Prime Minister Takatori Reiji, in a legal study of human genetics…_

…_continued working after the project was dropped. Escaped before Takatori Masafumi was dealt with, and works alone in the basement of a run-down building along… Experiments made with animals, then later on with human test subjects, mostly female, under age 20 and runaways. Contacts of the target that supplied the human test subjects taken out on… then struck a deal with a prostitution ring. Later ran out of money, target has taken to kidnapping to provide for himself test subjects. First attempt to kidnapping…_

…_after the target is disposed evidences found in the laboratory hints at experiments of a scientific endeavor but of an occult basis. It is believed that the target has been trying to manipulate DNA through a substance injected into the bloodstream. All found bodies reported to have died from the substance. Samples retrieved are yet to be analyzed. Last victim died differently, from a wound above the left breast. Nothing traceable found from the wound. The target is believed to have tried the experiment on himself. Results on him unknown…_

"Hmm."

Aya dealt with the facts before him as he deals with most things in his life: like a carefully planned siege by Caesar's army with a battering ram 1. Facts slid into places in his memory like the children's toy wherein the square one goes here, and the triangle one goes there, even if it barely looks like a square or most people doesn't recognize the triangle. And now the facts were sliding into the correct places that were still missing some things. This is the part where the sound effect "ping!" and the light bulb flashing might come in, if only it wasn't Aya, because with Aya then everything's been sorted out eons ago, he just needs some other proof for it. So he laid down the folder and stared at Yohji, whom was hitherto absentmindedly smoking, who in turn stared back. And while Aya's stare was of a calculating reason, Yohji's was more out of… well; the way a skull stares back at you. No reason at all, it just does. This explains why Aya was the first to break the glance, seeing as how there's nothing in his Menacing Glare Arsenal to combat that _Look_ which reminds him of the words "Dead Man Walking".

"So." Aya said.

"So." Yohji answered.

"…"

"You've heard the news, then, yeah?"

Aya cocked his head to one side, and gave Yohji a fairly disinterested yeah' of his own. Yohji was referring to the news Aya himself had just confirmed downstairs with Ken.

"We both know we've seen that before…" Yohji whispered. Aya thought he detected a hint of fear in that whisper, but he brushed the thought aside. So he nodded again. When Yohji didn't say anything but continued to stare fixedly at the cigarette curling languid smoke in his hand, Aya prompted the older Assassin back with a verbal yes. Silence settled in with the oncoming night. Aya uncharacteristically broke the ice.

"You're telling me _you_ think that these new murders… no, let me rephrase that. You're telling me you believe that the murders, Dr. Jacques Jeumans, and you are all connected?"

Yohji shrugged. "Well, don't _you?"_ he answered pointedly. "You come up here and accuse me of murdering people on Saturday nights." His brows met. "Well, it's not as if we've never killed anyone on a Saturday night. Just that _murdering_ and _assassinating_ are two different _killings_, yeah. Both stops em dead, but different." He paused before he added, "Ideally."

Aya seemed to consider this for a moment. "No, I believe you _know_ something about the murders."

"Meaning?"

"I don't think you killed them." _Yet_, he added mentally, "But I do think you're vital to the whole situation." Aya is a fairly truthful person. But there are a number of things he'd rather not tell Yohji- his name, his past, and that delicious little blonde that came around the shop a month ago looking for the older assassin 2. And now, he didn't want to tell Yohji that he feels Yohji would also know about his… Shadow Stalker'. Just because.

"Because?"

It was Aya's turn to shrug his shoulders. Beats him why he thinks Yohji's a vital link to the whole mess. Maybe it's because Yohji's been having weird Saturday nights. And maybe it's because Aya's been having weird Saturday nights himself. But most of all, maybe it's because there's that tiny, yet nagging gut feeling he has that's pointing towards Yohji. What the feeling is about, however, he doesn't want to know.

"You've got this _feeling_ again, huh?"

Another shrug, but this time it's because Aya's letting the sarcasm slide off. The poor cigarette, more than half the time just left to smoke itself, finally died, and out of habit Yohji lit another one, destined to suffer the same fate of it's predecessor. Smoking irritates the redhead, for sure, but he didn't comment. He just made a face to let the blonde know he still hates it, but is just letting him off the hook for once because he thinks the other one's knee deep in perfect shit.

Yohji, on the other hand, tells white lies unabashedly. He feels it at least keeps ugly truth at bay. There are a number of things Yohji would lie about to Aya- like how he really felt sorry for the younger Assassin, or how he thinks Aya seems like a cat, or how he feels Aya should just get a fuck. Incidentally, he'd never tell Aya about this one girl, a delicious little blonde who was supposed to come around the shop last month but never contacted him again. He wouldn't want Aya to think he, Yohji the great, can just get stood up like that. But this time he felt he had to tell Aya what he thinks and (_shudder_) suspect about himself. Well, at least a part anyway.

"Aya, I've got to tell you something… remember that mission when we took out Jacques Jeumans? Remember, when I was sucking at the bite wound, you told me not to do it?"

"What about it?"

"Well… I have this _feeling…_"

1 That is, to barge away but in an orderly fashion with all things considered, which is, after he's considered everything, thought about it, planned it, then there's no stopping him.

2 Well, there was this delicious little blonde whom Yohji dated the night before, and came around the shop for a second tryst with the older man. Aya was alone in the shop and he told her Yohji was away but incidentally, maybe she'd like to have dinner with him sometime. She's not the first one to think oh, now here's a good looking fellow, I wonder how he is in bed?' Well, she doesn't need to wonder. But after a month Aya broke things off, the girl was getting rather clingy, and Yohji might get suspicious. Partly because Aya thinks sex is great and all that, a release of sorts, but orgasm to him is like sneezing- feels wonderful, is needed by the body, but not to be taken every time. Yes, Aya has been getting it. But he feels that that doesn't mean he has to be loud about it, like _some people_ are.

Okay, that was a stump. I love Botticelli paintings, especially Venus and Mars'. I get this feeling that his portraits of (mostly) Medici personalities are looking at you haughtily must be because of the way the head is positioned. Even his St. Sebastian looks at you in an air of haughtiness. But that's just me, and I'm no art critic.

Sorry if this turns out to be a let down, I was in a stump. I have to say, I wasn't planning to make this shounen-ai or anything, I mean, I'm still not going to make it one (I think), but I somehow sense as if it _does_ seem like one, so if you want to read it that way, well, be my guest.

I've never had a Bloody Mary before. Nor now. So I really don't know if they're not viscous or metallic tasting. But I hazard they really aren't. It's a bloody giveaway it is.

And that mission report thing? Crap. Well, I've never done one anyway, so little surprise it turned out like crap. It's an extensive one fairly because they needed info on what the late scientist was studying and experimenting before to get hints as to what the goop (evidence) really is.


	11. Bite Me

Night has come to Tokyo, and the early evening wind has taken to cooler temperatures. One by one, the stars seem to fade into (not out) the sky of different shades of darkness. The stars are beautiful to behold, and they know it, being vain creatures themselves. But down below, two figures sitting on the cold hard cement floor of a rooftop perch were hardly noticing them, partly because it's a city and all that smog, and partly because they were too absorbed in something else.

"Aya, I think I caught it from the bite." Yohji had said, as his had rubbed that part of his arm.

"Caught?"

"I don't know…" Yohji replied, still rubbing that part of his arm, a look of confusion now on his face as he struggled to explain the myriads of thoughts in his head. "Perhaps. Something. From the doctor- he bit me, yeah?"

The redhead frowned. He didn't like where this conversation was going. He searched for the odd word he read earlier in the mission folder. "Caught Lycanthropy, you mean? You think the doctor was making a serum that warps the DNA to include lycanthropy?"

He nodded his head, slowly at first, then furiously. Here was Aya saying exactly what he thought but just couldn't make sentences of. "Yeah, he was studying it right? Pretty obsessed about it… and he seems like the type of guy that would try to make a serum out of a myth…"

"For what, pray tell?"

"Oh…" Yohji gestured around with his hands, "… the usual stuff. Immortality. Youth. Proof he's not as bonkers as the other scientists say he is." He was beginning to feel a vague sense of relief, at least here was someone he could talk with. When he looked to Aya's face, however, he quickly rectified that sense of relief. The man had utter disbelief all over his face, not the kind of disbelief that's like "oh gosh!", rather the one that goes "you're kidding me right?" for the nth time, Yohji's hopes fell. Aya was unforgiving though, he wouldn't lessen the look on his face even after he saw Yohji slump back in dejection.

"You do realize what you're talking about?"

Flinging the cigarette impetuously, he rubbed his face with his hands in a very irritated manner. He could just feel the first gnawing sensations of despair from the pit of the stomach, and he didn't need Aya to urge it further. "You know what, if you could just stop being so fucking skeptical for a moment and try to help me out here…" he cried out, exasperated, "… maybe I wouldn't sound so goddamned stupid and then we could solve all this… this… SHIT_…_" he spat out the last word, disgusted. "And it's not as if this is the first incredibly unreal villain's plot line we've dealt with, you know! I mean," his hands gesture wildly about him,"the fucking prime minister's son turned into some fucking monster! Tell me _that's_ not weird. And our arch enemies, for fuck's sake, levitate this and that…" and he went on, rambling about the other enemies they've fought, still gesturing wildly, "… and would you believe the prime minister's mutton chops? He looks like a fucking koala!..."

Aya had to accede that Yohji had a point there. It wasn't as if some scientist discovering the serum that turns people, when injected with it, into the mythical, undead of the night was the worst of the shocking, out of this world, villains they had to deal with in the past. And he must admit that that Takatori spawn really took the cake. So maybe Yohji had a point here. He decided to be less cruel to the frustrated man before him.

"All right…" Aya interrupted, "I'll suspend my disbelief, "a pause, "for a moment."

Yohji stopped in the middle of ranting about some freak-ass chick with some parasol, surprised that Aya admitted that he had a point. "Oh? Well. Okay, great."

"So tell me all about whatever this…" Aya paused again for a moment, tried looking for another word, then gave up, "…_shit_ is all about."

So Yohji did. But not all of it, of course. He skipped the part where he heard the voice. And the mirror thing. It could seriously discredit the whole story, and it's not even that credible in the first place. Besides, even though it was the middle of the week, and the voice was surely too weakened that he wasn't visited by it, he still felt it could hear him, know that he told someone else about it. So he told the other man about the weird black outs instead, the way he tried to remedy it, the way he broke out of his own remedy, and -he was forced to say it- the _dried_ _blood_ on him (at this point of his story he couldn't hold back the shudder) when he came to on Sunday mornings. Yohji suppressed a grimace, knowing that in the end Aya would still think its all bollocks.

"…but in the end, I'm really not sure about everything, because well, black-outs do that to you, you know."

Silence crept back, and the two regarded each other again, weighing words and revising opinions.

"So…?"

"Hmm?"

"What do you think?"

"Bullshit is what I think. You seriously believe yourself?"

_Fuck it there's no getting through with this guy!_ Yohji is very nearly blowing his top off, hugely irritated towards his goddamned predicament, towards oh-so-fucking-skeptical Aya, and Life in general. "WELL. YES, NO… I DON'T KNOW, OKAY!..." he flustered. "Maybe! I mean, what the hey, you know?"

"I do?"

Yohji threw him an angry glare, but only a short one as he gave into quiet exasperation (and besides, it wasn't as mean as Aya's). "Come on, man, don't be so literal."

_Well, you're asking me to look at this predicament_ literally_. I mean, really, lycanthropy is a myth. You're asking me to believe in a myth_ _that's manipulated scientifically. And to believe in one is to take it_ literally _you goddamned half-wit._ But Aya didn't want to exasperate Yohji further than the man already was, so he kept it to himself. Instead, he volunteered a guess. "Maybe you're just having hallucinations?"

Yohji scoffed. "Right. Maybe I'm turning into the Hulk?" Aya gave him a puzzled look, "You know, the Hulk? Meek scientist turns into big green man who's perpetually angry?" When no enlightened look replaced the one on Aya's face, Yohji gave up. "Forget about it. What I meant to say is this is a _really_ coincidental hallucination here. Oh, it just so happened that I was began having hallucinations right after I got bitten on the arm by a crazed, superbly strong scientist, one Saturday night, when _someone_ else came into my room, smashed my window, flung off the dresser, ripped off a bed post, then doused me with blood-like substance and left me feeling really sixes and sevens the next morning, memory completely buggered. And, to really confuse me, that _someone_ timed their murders the same nights I've been having my _hallucinations._ Gee, it all makes sense now."

"Okay." Aya said curtly, a bit put off by Yohji's biting sarcasm, "So it might not be a hallucination."

"Might not? _Might NOT_? Aya, it's not a hallucination."

"But it all seems so farfetched."

"Then explain to me the wrecked room, the black outs, the many coincidences then… no, you don't have to explain them. Just explain to me the blood."

Aya thought about it. The blood clinched it. Where _would_ Yohji get it in his room? It all fits now, he thought. _And I_ _bet_ _if I told him about the shadow… then he'd be convinced that_ _that_ _isn't any coincidence either._

"I think I see it. Can't you? I've turned into… something else. Whatever that scientist was experimenting on, I caught it, and this time…" he looked back to Aya, a bit mournful, "…this time it worked."

"You mean… you think you're what… a vampire?"

Right now, pictures of Bela Lugosi and other black and white dozen a dime Draculas (that he recalled from his mumsy's Halloween movie marathons, along with Frankenstein) danced around his head.

In Aya's head however, the name Bram Stoker came to mind. Then words like silly', childish' and the likes came to mind. Aya is a skeptic, he knew that, but he'd rather call himself a realist. He didn't know if he was a pessimist because he was a realist or the other way around. No matter. He is well read, and is familiar with the vampire mythos. He thinks they're just sexual metaphors for a repressed age, recalling Bram Stoker's novel. Now they're just fetish creatures. Then he thought of the peasants, those obscure eastern European people who really believed in vampires. Did _they_ think vampires as sexual metaphors? He mentally raised his eyebrows, and thought perhaps not. There is something more sinister, more _basically evil_ about the peasant's bloodsucker, as opposed to the romantic's. But please. A vampire? Yohji? In Japan? Is it possible? He shook his head, as Yohji shook his own.

"No, I think I'm turning into something else… lycan… that's werewolf right?"

_Oh by_ _the love of…of_ _all things orange! He really believes all this!_ "Not necessarily. Vampires are part of the lycan lore. They metamorphose too, you see."

"Ah, you mean the business with bats and all that?"

"Hn." Not really, Aya thought, it's the business with being an undead bloodsucker, but heck, no need to say that to Yohji.

"Yeah well either way…"

They mulled their thoughts and silence came back, a bit annoyed that he had to go back and forth to this place when they can just talk straight and then let him come and stay put. Then Yohji came back from wherever he had been in his head.

"I guess it'd be vampire. I mean, what with the blood and all that. And the… I mean that if it was really me, you know, the bite marks on those poor buggers."

"Right… a vampire."

Yohji nodded his head gravely; he's so serious that Aya had to double check. Yup, Yohji's still serious. _And one flew over the cuckoo's nest,_ Aya thought.

"Right."

"You don't believe me." This was said more of a statement than a question, and had so annoyed Aya he was moved to say something sarcastic.

"Oh, no. I believe you. In fact, I myself am a _werewolf_. Roooawrrr." And he made clawing movements with his hand to accompany this. Yohji was staring at him, barely holding in a gape, letting his bewilderment to pass before he commented on it.

"You know, in some other context, time, and maybe planet _that_," he mimicked Aya's werewolf impression, "…would've been insanely erotic, delivered in some other fashion."

Aya rolled his lavender eyes and muttered, "Bite me."

And he thought he had this all figured out. He groaned inwardly. He had come up to the roof for some proof to the little theory he's got in his head. And he thought shocking Yohji would make the older man confess the truth readily than otherwise. But he was wrong, oh was he wrong. Now what he got is some crazy confessions of a case of mistaken specie, conspiracy theories and snowballing facts. He only thought Yohji would have picked up the fact that the manner of death of the four bodies were akin to that of the last victim of Jeumans, and maybe the older man knew something else he didn't. It's not as if he could just take Yohji's story at face value. It's not as if he's seen the dried blood that Yohji recounted. So they're extremely coincidental, that happens… well maybe not. Well, there was that mess in Yohji's room the other Saturday… surely the blond is strong, but not _that_ strong. And that had evidences. Aya rubbed his left temple as he felt the oncoming headache he's sure to have from all these. Okay, sure, he had his suspicions, and that gut feeling he'd been avoiding that somehow told him Yohji would also know of his nightly unwelcome visitor. Something tells him this all ties up together. But that doesn't give credit to this cock and bull story…

…does it?

This whole chap is just by way of an explanation. This is where the fic all goes downhill.

Bela Lugosi--- the quintessential Dracula actor.

The Incredible Hulk--- you know, the Marvel comics' answer to the Green Giant mascot (hehe, just a joke, no offense to The Hulk fans out there).

Lycanthropy--- uh, you can look this one up. I mean, it's lore. It'd be a bit heavy to explain.

Peasant vs. Romantic Notion of the Vampire--- got that from a book I used for research on this fic. Yeah, I mean, compare the European folk tales (before the novel Dracula) to Anne Rice's vampires. Worlds apart.

Stoker's Dracula as sexual metaphor--- got that in another book. Well, he did get away with all these amorous trysts with women during the repressed Victorian era setting. I mean, what else would he stand for?

Bram Stoker--- the Irish writer famous for the novel "Dracula" which spawned a whole new genre in fiction.

_One flew over the cuckoo's nest-_ is a rhyme, and is a title of a Jack Nicholson movie and maybe a novel or something.

Well, Asia has it's fair share of vampires, bloodsuckers, and nightly undead, but in folktales they differ greatly from the now universally accepted notion of the Vampire- which has European origins (somewhere near Russia, or a place that has been once part of Imperial Russia, at least), popularized by a terrible Transylvanian (well, so they say) ruler (that's Vlad the Impaler), then by a novel based on Vlad, carried to America, standardized by Bela Lugosi as some cloak-clad Count that has that obscure, eastern European accent. That's where Aya's having a difficulty, just _which_ vampire type did Yohji thinks he became? Is he: Asian folktale-ish, peasant, American movie type, Dracula stereotype or romantic, gothic kind? I ask that same question myself.

Yes, I know, this chapter _sucks_. Not a pun.


	12. Getting Along

A lone figure paced back and forth across the alley at the back of the Koneko building, radiating agitation with every step. From time to time, a cigarette is lit, puffed once or twice, then left to smoke itself or immediately flung to the brick wall to the right, and then another cigarette would follow. The day is Friday, and Yohji is getting desperate. Already half the day was gone, and he has yet to convince that _prissy_ Aya to help him. He needed back up for tomorrow night, and he needed one fast, before a certain voice begins talking to him.

The back door opened, and Yohji quickly killed the cigarette he was holding and rushed towards the figure at the doorway.

"Aya, listen, we _have_ to _talk._" Urgency and plea mingled in his voice. Aya, on his part, had tired annoyance all over his face as he hauled the two green garbage bags over to the garbage bin, carefully sidestepping Yohji and the latter's entreaties. As soon as the garbage was disposed he strode back to the door, resolute to turn a deaf ear to the already pleading Yohji.

"_AYA!_ I _need_ you!"

Aya's retreating figure promptly froze, and you can just bet how the hairs on the nape of his neck stood. A thought immediately came to his mind at the prompting of Yohji's last sentence, and he didn't like it. _He NEEDS you. You HAVE to help him', s_aid a needling voice within his head. Brows furrowed above tightly shut eyes, jaws set as teeth ground out. "No-o. Definitely NOT", muttered Aya, as menacing and convincing as he could manage. _No man should ever be driven to snivel like that in front of his peer.'_ Aya snorted. Well, yes, it is pathetic. And who said I'm his peer? _A man in NEED,_ _Aya. Think. Can you_ really _just walk away from a man so downtrodden as to vocally admit that he_ needs _help?'_ the voice answered back. Oh yeah? Watch me. _Ran,'_ the voice said, in what can be said as a low firm voice for a voice inside a head, _you're his last chance.'_

No, no, no, no, I don't need this!

This isn't the first time Aya had a particularly trying conversation with the other him that lives in his head. And it isn't the first time Yohji had to watch him have the conversation with the other him either. The blond wisely backed away from Aya's still figure, and watched apprehensive from the safety distance can afford him. If Yohji knew fig, he'd bet on the voice in Aya's head to be on his side.

Aya hated this. He was having a bad case of help the underdogs because they don't know what's what'. His sense of justice was in overdrive. The other him was right. He _couldn't_ leave Yohji to… to what_ever_ Yohji was having. Where's the pride in being Hunter of the Night if he just allow himself to fail a comrade, much less after the man admitted helplessness? Then he'd be no better than the bad ones. He's _going_ to help Yohji, he realized, to his horror. But he didn't like to admit it, not one bit.

With fists clenched, Aya opened his eyes and turned to where Yohji was standing. The grimace on his face told the whole world how much he hated what he was going to do. Yohji fought back a cringe, the man may be odd, but Aya's the only help he's got. "You," Aya called out, the word having such an effect as to be the equivalent of a ramrod pointed finger, "I'll.Help.You."

Relief poured into Yohji's features as he straightened and walked up to Aya, hands clasped in front of him and bowing every now and then. "Really? Thank you, _thank you_ Aya, you don't know how much this _means_ to me…" He was so thankful and relieved he hadn't the time to think neither about his actions nor stop himself as his arms flung out and enveloped the stunned redhead in a most surprising bear hug 1.

"Oh, hey look, they're getting along."

Omi looked up from the sink to his side, where Ken was standing and holding the curtain from the kitchen window. Following the brunette's gaze, Omi's eyes found their redhead colleague in what he could only term as the most bewildering and ridiculous position- inside Yohji's totally spontaneous and uncalled for bear hug. Omi cringed. He doesn't know about Ken, but that look on Aya's face certainly says he's not getting along with anyone, fast.

There passed an awkward moment for both Aya (for being in a _bear hug,_ for the entire world to see) and Omi (for being part of that world who had to see). Fortunately, for Yohji, he came to his senses before Aya's hands ever got to his throat and he dropped the hug like a hot potato and jumped back a good two feet or so, just for good measure, and smiled sheepishly. His mumbled apology was cut short by a slightly trembling hand of Aya.

"_DON'T_.Ever.Do.**_THAT_**.Again."

"Uh, yeah…sorry… got… uhm… carried away I suppose…"

Aya executed a sharp turn and headed back to the door, trying to ignore the laughing voice inside his head.

"Don't even think about getting me to run around with a huge crucifix and a fistful of garlic. No."

Yohji ran a hand through his hair in a very irritated manner. He really wanted to snap, "Hey, you run around with a huge crucifix _all the time_", but he didn't. He asked for the redhead's help, it wouldn't do to agitate the man further.

"I wasn't asking you to, Aya."

Aya huffed, well, as much as he could without walking out of Yohji's room. He wasn't going to ask himself how he got himself sitting on Yohji's bed and listening to the older man's plan, because he knew that already. Besides, if he did, a really annoying voice in his head would tell him how, anyway. This was as much as his fault as Yohji's. He was the one who gave Yohji the idea that he could be a _vampire-_ the voice in his head made sure he was told that over and again.

"All I'm asking you is that you stick with me tomorrow until Sunday. And if I ever got out of hand, well, you know what to do."

"I'm not going to kill you Yohji."

"Well, just put me unconscious or something…" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a movement on the mirror. It kind of shivered, which is queer because mirrors don't normally do that. He could see his reflection obscured by Aya's back. He thought he saw his reflection flutter. _Oh fuck._ "…listen, I don't have time to argue. Just be by my side the whole day, first thing in the morning okay?"

It was only a hint, but Aya felt more than heard the urgency in Yohji's voice. He saw it in the way Yohji gave a slight start, in the manner of the other man's hands. Something was off here. He narrowed his eyes and didn't look like he's going away any time soon. The frantic edge in Yohji's voice soon became apparent.

"_Listen_, Aya, you have to go now."

"Why are you so anxious to get rid of me all of a sudden?"

"…please don't argue… just…"

"Are you hiding something from me?"

Yohji was wrong to steal a glance towards the mirror, because Aya saw it and turned to look at the mirror himself. His breath caught in his throat. Did the mirror just…? For a moment, there was nothing. Then, the mirror surface trembled again, this time more pronounced, and Yohji's reflection, though partly hidden, seemed to form swirls. Aya blinked, and looked harder. His reflection was okay. It looked as perplexed as he is. But Yohji's reflection… he turned back to Yohji, to find that the older Assassin had already stood up and hurried to the mirror. He didn't hurry enough though, because before Yohji's fist connected with the mirror, Aya saw that Yohji's reflection didn't get up as the blond did. In fact, it was still sitting behind him, with an undecipherable small smile on his face. And it was looking _right back_ at Aya with, Aya realized to his horror, a look of naked hunger in its emerald eyes.

1 A note on the bear hug- you know the kind of hug where you're completely enveloped in someone's arms lifted a fraction off the ground and swung from side to side? Well, this one isn't quite like that. It's more of the squeezing you more tightly and raised to your tiptoes and swung from side to side kind.

Well, there goes another one. Reviews please.


	13. Go On, Surprise Me

Assassins are people that are hard to surprise. First, it's a job requirement to not easily be surprised and second, they've seen more surprising things in the course of their jobs than say, your spiffy card trick. And this specific group of Assassins, our dear boys, is harder to flap, because it does get kind of hard to flip over things that do not compare to the things your archrivals regularly do (say, levitate stuff and even yourself into a wall and the odd mantra from a guy with an eye patch that sounds suspiciously like the prayer "Our Father" recited over and over to a really sharp-looking dagger-knife-thingy). The fashion sense of some of their enemies alone numbs them to whatever oddity they might encounter for the rest of the long, tiring night.

When a mirror moves like a pool of water without caring to explain itself, which it has no right to do, that merits some attention from our Hunters of the Night. Taking into consideration that individuals belonging to their rival group defy physics on a regular basis, a rippling mirror garners a raised eyebrow at the most. But when, on that rippling mirror, your teammate's reflection acts on it's own accord without any respect to the man who owns that reflection, stare at you as if it's eating you alive _and_ liking it, well, that's something an Assassin can consider as surprising. In fact, Aya, the most unflappable of the four, decided to show his surprise clearly by flourishing a slightly disturbed wide-eyed look, with the mouth agape but only for a moment. Indeed his surprise can already be called shock.

Yohji, for his part, stood there in eerie silence. His left hand hangs limp at his side, rosy liquid flowing in rivulets from in between flesh and shards of glass, forming blotched rosette patterns on the hardwood floor below. Aya had to shout the blonde's name thrice before Yohji turned to look at him like a hanged marionette; his upper body crudely turning to Aya's direction while the rest of him remained stiff. It is as if suddenly all the life had been sucked from Yohji leaving only the shell of his body whose volition was left to strings being pulled by an old rheumatic and slightly deaf puppeteer. For once, all was quiet inside Aya's head as he saw Yohji's eyes staring emptily back to him. The redhead opened and closed his mouth, considering a myriad of questions in his mind. In the end, he gave up and went for the most recurring and obvious question.

"What the _fuck_ is going on?"

Saturday morning came and was significantly surprised to see an impossibly quiet Yohji and a normally grumpy Aya opening the store together. When Ken and Omi arrived at the shop a little later they were equally surprised to see the shop already opened and more surprised to see Yohji so early in the morning on a Saturday. The day has started out to be full of surprises, mainly for people and anthropomorphic beings other than the blond and redhead pair.

This, for Ken, was at least a cheery little thing. It confirms his theory that yes, Yohji and Aya has decided to reconcile their differences (which are basically everything) and try to get along, sharing working shifts and bear hugs along the way. Not that Ken is odd to think this way, just that between (a) establishing friendship and (b) possible homosexuality, he's more comfortable with (a) as reason for the sudden Yohji-Aya togetherness that they've been seeing. And not that because he thinks there's anything wrong with homosexuality, just that if he thinks either of the two were gay, and looking for a stable relationship, then neither of the two would choose the other because they'd drive each other stark raving homicidal in less than an hour of togetherness. Which must explain Aya's uncharacteristic mutterings and Yohji's uncharacteristic quietness. But then again, the two had been together since yesterday's bear hug, so that got Ken into thinking that maybe the two could indeed weather out a long period of time together and then maybe they could actually make a romantic relationship work between them. Then he remembered Yohji's sexual appetites and Aya's strictly enforced sexual diet, and dropped the relationship idea. Any moment know, Ken knew, something unexpected would happen.

For Omi, on the other hand, this is just plain weird. If he thought about the deal he and Yohji struck over a mission folder and somehow connected it with what's happening, he didn't show it to anyone. And if he noticed Yohji's bandaged left hand, he didn't let on 1. Instead, he ventured on a question.

"Ah, hey guys, I thought I had the shift with Aya today?"

The two- Aya grumpily working out the counter and Yohji mindlessly flipping the open' sign on the door- turned to look at him, then returned to what they were doing. Omi gave a long-suffering sigh and turned to Ken. Ken, just finishing with his rather wordy train of thought, smiled and went back to the kitchen, presumably to get a breakfast started. Omi, having personally tasted Ken's gastronomical endeavors, shrugged, gave a cheery "oh well if you want to work Yohji don't let me stop you" and wisely followed Ken, taking the fire extinguisher on the way.

Various traffic noises filtered through the shop, muffled conversations between pedestrians fell on largely deaf ears. Silence, just finishing it's cigarette break, fell back in place. Aya had stopped muttering vicious, biting when-I-get-my-hands-on' words, but you can be sure he's continued it inside his head. And you can also be sure that the voice in his head is laughing its anthropomorphic head off.

Yohji, however, is getting paranoid. Things were too quiet. If anyone had pointed out to him that _he_ was being uncharacteristically quiet himself, well he would have went into a "me? No shit…" kind of surprise.

He just knew that that some_thing_ is just there, lurking, waiting. But every time his gaze falls on Aya, the lurking feeling disappears, and he is pretty sure that the voice rising to be heard from his unconscious falls into an eerie hush itself. This would have been nice, really peachy keen, he thought, if it keeps on then all he has to do is stare at Aya every single day of his life and the creepy thingummies will go away forever. Well, maybe not go away, but definitely keep away from him by, say, 10 meters. How will he go about that, he doesn't know, but he surely will, by all that's Holy he surely will. ONLY, when that creepy feeling's gone and he's pretty sure that no reflection of himself would suddenly come to it's own life and some haunting voice starts a very disturbing talk with him, ANOTHER feeling replaces it. That is what's primarily making him paranoid. This feeling takes over his being seconds into his gaze towards the redhead, whatever either of them would be doing at present time. Something about Aya's natural grace and ethereal look, that unearthly cast and magnetic aura… _that creamy white neck, exposed, with strands of blood red hair falling over it…that oh so breakable skin, the dancing blue veins just underneath it… pulsating with rich dark…_ Yohji shook his head fiercely. Where the hell did that come from? He stops sweeping the floor and decide to water the plants instead, the ones _outside_, to clear his head, get away from Aya and reluctantly check if he's still straight.

Before Aya could ask where the other man was going, the door already closed, leaving the redhead on his own and his embittered grumbling.

"I _knew_ this was a bad idea."

Incidentally, both of them had the very same thought at the very same time. If only both of them knew that the reason Momoe-san's tabby cat was poised and ready to spit fire and raise it's heckles till it touches the sky, and why the wind blew rather erratically and their wind chime seem to tinkle ominously 2 was because right now a disembodied voice laughed richly at how well and easy he could bend them to his will, and it wasn't Yohji's conscience or Aya's other voice. No, it was something entirely _other._

1 Probably because "mirror-punching" was a common form of Yohji-is-depressed-so-don't-muck-about syndrome. This has evoked a considerable debate, which ends with the three just leaving the guy alone, and voting not to take out any form of breakable glass from the blonde's room because what the blonde does is very well his own business, the stupid jerk, even if he does uses his hands for their jobs and continuing with such destructive behavior would result to decreased optimal output and extra furniture expense (you can just guess that that was Aya's opinion). Besides, Ken reminds them, each of them had a quirk of their own when they go about their "angst sessions", and don't Aya force him to say what the redhead does on such occasions. Yohji, for his part, atones for this by buying quality mirrors that costs a certain expense, largely because he is vain and would like to see his person on the very best reflection there is.

2 How a tinkle could sound ominous, I leave it up to your vast imagination.

I really am sorry for giving such a late update, but our computer's broken down (it still is, I'm using our school's computer facilities, and it is very uncomfortable for me to go about devising stories with more than 30 other people in the same room, with two others immediately by my side and can easily look and read from my monitor) and school's back again, and I had a case of a block, wherein I didn't know where to go from there. But I do have a ready ending, it's what I worked out the first time this story came to mind. My problem now is how to get there. Hmmm.

I still am _not_ writing a shounen-ai, although they are the couple of choice for me, but the story seem to insist on being one. God thank Ken for being a great character to fiddle around with.

Till the next spurt of inspiration.


	14. Scrabble It All

Six hours, four dozen hormone driven girls, three serious costumers, three bouquets and countless other single flowers plus one wreath later, Yohji and Aya stare at each other from across the mission room, each at the far end of the other. Both are terribly exhausted, as no other Saturday work can 1 make them, due to the fact that other than those four dozen hormone driven girls driving their patience to fringes, they had each other to goad it on. Just half a day and already they were sick of each other's faces. Not that there's anything to be sick about, we all know how these two look like and we _know_ there's nothing to be sick about, just that they can't help it. There's this something they feel when they chance upon each other looking at them, and it certainly isn't love. Yohji had to flirt extra hard just to make sure it wasn't love (he's sure that he's straight, he checked it four times 2 ).

"So…"

"Hn."

Yohji sighed. He didn't like this much either, instead of long cigarette breaks and a lunch date with some hot woman, he had to spend all his time with Aya. Not that he was complaining, of course, it was his idea, he's just a bit annoyed because he knows Aya is deliberately making it harder for him. Sure, the terrible feeling goes away and he feels a wee bit safer from the voice, but he's bored as hell and Aya's not helping. Besides, his mind wanders off to things inexplicable when Aya's in his peripheral view for too long.

"You know I hate this as much as you do."

"So why bother?"

Aya knows he just said it to annoy Yohji because he knows why they had to bother. He couldn't leave things just like that. He wants everything to be explained or at least, he wants to understand what the fuck is going on. Besides, he gave his word, and he's not about to go back on that. He just didn't like spending this much time with any other person, because he hasn't spent this much time with any other person since… since… well you know. _Well, at least I know I'm not the only one hating this._ The only thing he can't quite comprehend was how, just starting today, he felt that same slow fear he felt those Saturday nights when he hid under his covers with a katana, waiting for whoever was outside his window to attack. That very same feeling comes back every time he realizes Yohji is watching him.

But nothing can come from sitting and staring at each other and consequently feeling those feelings they feel when they stare at each other. Besides, it's already past lunchtime.

So they resolved their quarrels for the moment and decided to eat lunch at a corner deli in peace… okay, in truce. Because Yohji was still having trouble looking at Aya without thinking of _that white exposed neck and how wonderful and warm it would feel beneath—_STOP, Yohji bellows at himself in his mind. Again, because Yohji was still having trouble looking at Aya without his mind wandering off to things better left unmentioned, he watched everything else instead. A certain lady and her skirt shortage caught his eye, and he was delighted to see that the face was equally eye-catching, and more delighted to note that he still is straight. When he turned to Aya to share some honest male bonding over beautiful women on the street, he was surprised _not_ at what his mind cooked up about Aya's neck or wrist (because it didn't have any) but at Aya—he was gazing right back at the woman, caught her eye, and gave her a very discrete wink.

What happened next amazed Yohji still- the woman instantly replied, boldly (and might Yohji add, sexily) walked over to them and wrote her number on Aya's table napkin. With only a few short words exchanged, Aya had a gorgeous date for tomorrow night in half the time it takes Yohji to get one. With the lady gone, Aya turned back to his salami sandwich nonchalant, giving Yohji a small cheeky smile when he noticed the very surprised look the blond had on his face.

"That woman didn't even give me another look when she saw you!"

Aya smirked a little at this, and Yohji's surprise mellowed a little as he felt his ego being challenged. Then he thought the better of it, because as much as he liked women he couldn't possibly think of them in his predicament. Besides, at least now he knows Aya's straight as well. So he just gave a hearty laugh, saying things like you sneaky devil you!' and so that's what you do when you're home alone!' To which Aya, soundlessly laughing himself, tells Yohji things like mind your own business…' and yeah, well…' Yohji never linked this to the delicious little blonde who was supposed to meet him at the shop and never came round 3; but this is possibly for the best. Returning to their sandwiches, the both of them felt something diffuse and they feel the better for it. Opinions are revised, and somehow they feel better about the other than they were the moment they started hanging out with each other out of necessity. This lightened the mood significantly, that is until night came round.

All throughout the day Aya kept thinking: "when is all the crazy stuff going to happen?" because none happened so far. Well, just one single and constantly annoying thing anyway- Yohji wouldn't look his way. This normally would've been a welcome thing for him, but he's with the man _all-day_ and still being ignored, and that annoyed him. There's a fine line between being given space for privacy and being ignored deliberately when you're within arm's length of the person, and the redhead is being shown just how fine that line can be. So he decides to be nice, on a given condition that if Yohji takes his niceness as a sign for more bear-hugs, then he would have to stop being nice, quickly and painfully 4.

So now, night came.

Somewhere, a sinister, disembodied voice whispered, though the two didn't notice it. This is what it said.

_**This is it.**_

_**Now is the time.**_

Nighttime inside Yojhi's room at unnamed apartment no. 1 in undisclosed area, Tokyo, Japan usually consists of creaking noises, loud moaning and rollicking good fun to any woman of a legal age. Aya, though of legal age, is not a woman. Which must explain why he isn't having any fun _at all_. So there they were, him and Yohji, camped out on the bed with a large festivity of ropes, handcuffs, dragnets, the occasional straight jacket in passing, a semi-lethal stun gun taken from god knows where, a box of pilfered Omi's darts (the kind that can put a very angry rhinoceros to sleep and leave it in a spinning world the moment it wakes up three days after), and a handkerchief beside a large bottle of ammonia which would make any kidnapper or date raping person cry with bliss 5. And, after a moment's hesitation, a pile of garlic and a cross hurriedly made out of barbecue sticks and generous sticky tape. Aya thinks Yohji is being melodramatic about everything, and he cannot imagine how a straight jacket would come in handy. And though he rolled his eyes at the barbecue stick cross, he patted his pocket to check for the rosary he secretly carried, just in case. They've made sure they're ready as hell for any mirror defying the laws of physics.

Anytime now.

…

Anytime.

…

Yep… anytime now.

…

An hour of staring at the wall (because, remember, Yohji can't look at Aya without disturbing thoughts entering his mind), they were ready to go kill a building full of badly dressed villains. Okay, forget villains, as long as they're badly dressed. Okay, forget their fashion choices, they just want to kill. Now. Or else.

For all the things Yohji got ready, he forgot to get something to help pass the time. Fortunately they found, or more appropriately, fished, a pack of cards from Yohji's bountiful nightstand 6 and started to play poker (after Aya gingerly wiped the questionable grease coating the pack on the bed's unresisting coverlet). But Yohji kept losing because he couldn't and wouldn't look at Aya, so he didn't know whether the younger Assassin was bluffing or not. They tried Go Fish', then, but Yohji kept jumping whenever their hands accidentally brushed each other that it added to Aya's increasing annoyance (I'm not a damned leper, asshole'-Aya) so they stopped after two rounds. Besides, it was a boring game to begin with. After that they couldn't agree on one card game, so Yohji tossed the unfortunate (or fortunate) pack of cards over his shoulder and looked about his room for some other board game, because they were _that_ bored. All the while, the clock kept ticking.

With a shout of triumph, Yohji pulled out an old, battered box that contained, much to Aya's surprise, a much-used Scrabble game. Yohji wouldn't give any explanation, except that it was something Mumsy liked. As to Aya's comment on whether whom he thought this Mumsy was, he tactfully kept it to himself. They set up the game and started to play.

Aya couldn't believe it, but Yohji was winning. _Who'd have thought that the blond moron could actually spell?'_ Aya thought, bitterly, and he frowned at his pieces, one of which was a Z. Hmm. What to do with a Z? As Aya pondered on what word contains a Z, U and a possible W, Yohji struggled with something not connected with Scrabble, which he was winning largely to the fact that he spent many a childhood afternoon losing to his Mumsy. There was something odd here, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. He hazarded a look at Aya, and quickly looked away as a very strong feeling of longing and an impossible urge to grab at the redhead's neck hit him like a ton of bricks. He felt bewildered. He never wanted Aya before, and he's pretty sure he's never wanted Aya _at all_. _So why this sudden…?_ His thoughts stopped dead when a voice came so clearly in his head that made his skin crawl.

_**My, my, my, you've figured me out. How terribly clever.**_

Realization dawned finale and so suddenly that Yohji lost his equilibrium and almost fell on his back (which would have surely ended with him executing a most awkward back flip/roll to the floor behind him since he's sitting on the edge of the bed).

Yohji almost cried out the thought in his head. _That's it! I'm not the one who wants Aya, it's… OH SHIT!'_

1 As I've said in a previous fic, Saturdays are what Aya hate the most because it means all those horrid girls are released from the gates of schools earlier than they are on weekends, prolonging their suffering.

2 How he checked it, I'll leave it to your prodigious imagination.

3 Check chapter 10 "Feelings and Half-truths" if you can't remember this one.

4 That is, painfully for Yohji.

5 Not to suggest that any of the two are the sort of person to do such things… well, they are Assassins.

6 Full of all the things you'd expect Yohji to have handy beside the bed at night.

Whew. Give me at the most, 5 more chapters and this whole thing is over with.


	15. Of Mice and Bloody Feckless Weapons

Before anything: thank you very much for taking the time to tell me how you found the story so far, and I am very sorry I couldn't deliver faster.

Just as Aya figured out how to connect his 'WUNG' to Yohji's brilliant FECK less' on the Scrabble board 1, Yohji lunged forward and grabbed Aya by the shoulders, upsetting the Scrabble board and Aya's chance to show Yohi that he's the better brain. What Aya wanted to say was, "What the hell's gotten into you Kudou?" but what he managed to say was "Whaaa-a-aaARGH!" because Yohji caught him by surprise in the middle of his Scrabble brainstorm and was shaking him by the shoulders very vigorously. Before Aya could snap at Yoji in extreme annoyance, Yohji had gotten to him first by shouting directly at him.

"GET OUT! Now! I figured it out Aya, and HE WANTS YOU!"

And then everything went black. Yohji came to to a sudden, swallowing darkness. There had been a struggle, he remembered in dismembered, vague, sporadic moments. Whatever struggle it was, he lost. He then realized that he was preparing to lunge from his window ledge to the fire exit railing above him, and this confused him, because if he just came to, then he should've been lying down or some other immobile position. And then he knew what his body tried to do- it was planning to make a fantastical leap, miraculously reach the bar then use the momentum to further propel himself dangerously onto the ledge in front Aya's window. He screamed, or tried to, because his mouth didn't open, and the gripping, horrid realization came to him- he no longer controlled his body. The struggle he lost was the struggle for control. He was trapped, now only a vague consciousness inside his own mind, watching what was happening to his body alienated body like in an existentialist film done by some obscure intellectual European director. He felt around his mind and encountered his conscience- cowering in a corner and waving at him. Then he felt that heavy, foreign _thing_ inside his head.

The voice…

… _It now controls me!_ Panicking, he tried to stop himself, straining so hard he almost passed out again. The faint sensation of the wind stinging his cheeks came to him, reminding him again that he was but trapped, and these sensations were felt by something else rather than him. 'AYA!' he thought, with a smidgen of hope. 'I must've escaped from him if I'm still alive! Dammnit that bloody idiot had better follow and stop me…' he calmed a moment, cherishing this thought. Aya would stop him. Only when his body hurdled the frightening distance between the two window ledges and crouched down by Aya's window, expertly breaking the glass with an elbow, that he remembered the earlier realization he had. The warnings he had shouted to the redhead before losing the struggle in his mind because something had hit him and he lost consciousness, leaving his mind open to the foreign influence. That Aya wasn't going to be his saviour. Aya was going to be his victim.

This is what happened.

After screaming into Aya's face, Yohji abruptly stood and distanced himself from Aya, barely managing to step backwards without falling over something.

"Aya, LEAVE NOW! IT wants YOU, can't you see?"

Aya, the sharp Assassin that we is, quickly deduced that the crazy was now in fact happening, so he stood up and approached Yohji warily. He had to calm Yohji down, bind him somehow and keep a vigilant watch over the blond. He was wrong. The crazy is not yet happening because Yohji was still unconsciously fighting back the voice from taking hold of his consciousness. Then, just as suddenly, Yohji's body jolted, froze, and then crumpled to the floor. Aya took the stun gun and some rope, and then stalked towards Yohji without taking his eyes off the prostrate blond. He didn't know this was the wrong move to do. He shoud've heeded Yohji's warning and ran the opposite direction from his teammate. But he didn't have any way of knowing that.

Beside Yohji, he ventured a wary hand on the blond's shoulder. Before he could make contact, however, Yohji's hadn shot out and took Aya' s wrist in a vise-like grip, and twisted it until Aya let go of the stun gun and went to his knees. Now standing, Yohji twisted Aya's arm further round the redhead's back. Through gritted teeth, Aya managed to say "Kudou… it's me… LET GO!" Yohji's erstwhile face broke out into momentary confusion, but this moment was enough for his grip to lax and Aya quickly got up. Yohji faced Aya and stood his full height, so that the older Assassin was looking down on the other. The redhead felt something he never felt since Aya-chan's accident- he felt real, heart-striking fear. Paralyzed for a moment he just stood there looking at Yohji and because of this he noticed something was definitely wrong with the other man.

Yohji clenched and unclenched his hands, turning his head this way and that, moving his body about like a long depraved junkie imagining a smorgasbord of his favorite hallucinatory drugs. 'Or,' Aya thought, 'like someone experiencing movement for the first time…' Scenes of human skins in the process of being worn by low-rate sci-fi aliens 2 gunned through the highway of Aya's mind, and despite finding sci-fi childish he felt a tremor running down his back. Then Yohji began flexing his facial muscles, and when he stretched his mouth wide Aya saw the canines _actually growing_ to dangerously long and pointy.

RUN, his brain told him, and it added, NOW.

He made a slight turn, but this caught Yohji's eyes and before Aya could take three steps towards the door Yohji had already grabbed him by the neck from behind. Gritting his teeth and closing his eyes, Aya made a blind grab with his right hand, caught a fistful of blond hair, and yanked down hard. Taken more by surprise than pain, Yohji's grip nevertheless loosened and Aya quickly clawed the hands off of his neck and made a run towards the door. A blink, and then Yohji was between Aya and escape, confusing Aya furthermore. When did Yohji become _so fast?_ Things where turning from the surprising to the inexplicable, and Aya hated inexplicable.

Aya backed away and returned to the bed, where he hoped to fish one of Omi's darts. Mentally cursing himself for not bringing his katana with him, he blindly clutched at whatever he can and turned around to see Yohji walking slowly towards him, head cocked to one side and a smile of amusement on his face. Aya only needed to see the hands clenching and unclenching at Yohji's side and the malicious look of a cat on a prowl in Yohji's eyes to know that the blond was far from merely amused.

_He's finding this all so amusing, like a game of cat and mouse. And I'm the fucking MOUSE.'_

The thought of being the hunted fired up Aya's Assassin's resolve, and he shoved aside the need to run away for the moment, ignoring the sickening feeling of fear building up in his stomach. Planting his feet firmly, bending his knees slightly, Aya poised himself ready to wipe that malicious look off of Yohji's face with the…

…Straightjacket…

_What the HELL…?'_ Of all the things Aya could've clutched at on the bed, the one thing he did clutch was the one thing he found least helpful. _Fucking well IMPROVISE moron!'_, the voice inside his head screeched at him. He gave the straightjacket a look of pure and utter disdain a moment before he stared Yohji head-on with grim determination. No way he was gonna die because of poor choice for a weapon! Biding his time, he controlled his breathing and focused his mind while waiting for Yohji to get in just the right proximity… the moment Yohji was at arm's reach he swung out with the straightjacket, covered and brought down Yohji's head with it. With quick and deft movements Aya secured the straightjacket on the blond head, gripped the cloth by the sleeves and pulled it hard so that Yohji fell on the floor beside the bed. Then Aya grabbed for the bottle of ammonia and smashed it hard on his teammate. Without a second look Aya turned and ran out Yohji's bedroom to his own, going straight for his katana.

"If the blow doesn't get him down, breathing in the ammonia will," he whispered to himself. "… Hopefully I didn't kill him…" wincing a bit when the arm Yohji twisted grabbed the katana, Aya added with a hiss, "…YET."

1 I've yet to know of a Japanese version Scrabble, so for the meantime the two are playing the game in English.

2 You know, those kinds of sci-fi alien movies where the basic plot is that some humans are actually aliens in disguise. I added in the low-budgeted to make it more specific. This is not to say that Aya thought Yohji was an alien in disguise.

I suck at writing action. Seriously. Unfortunately, there's more of them coming. Cringe whenever you feel like cringing.


	16. Who Is This Nut? complete chap

Tick tock.

Aya could feel the salty sweat flowing it's way to his left eye, but he dare not blink. For whatever screwed up reason, Yohji is now beyond fast, and he's not taking any chances. He stood there in the dark of his room, katana ready; his body poised to either lunge forward or fall back to regroup. He psyched himself into a mission state, working on his apprehension and annoyance and building it up to somewhere near his "Takatori- shine!" mode of mind. A thing kept bugging him in the recesses of his mind though; Yohji is a teammate… whatever moral dilemma that that thought could've led him into was shattered with the sound of broken glass. _Shit, here he comes._

Imagine a bird of prey poised for the kill on a branch of tree. That was how Yohji looked on the windowsill, sitting on his haunches, hands gripping the frame. He looked positively delighted, and the way the shadows fell on his face made it look eerie. _Goddamnit, _Aya thought,_ never saw the bugger so happy. _Nobody made a move, and for some insane reason Yohji, _if that's still Yohji, _could hold his ridiculous position far longer than Aya could. Despite Aya's misgivings, he made the first move- he took a step forward, katana before him.

_**Tsk, tsk, tsk… Aya. You must listen to your instincts. **_

That's not Yohji's voice. Yohji's lips did not move. What the fuck is going on. Abort, idiot, abort…

Aya took a tentative step backward, and sure enough the voice replied.

_**Confused, Aya? Or should I call you… Ran?**_

_Kami… how the hell… _The katana fell on the floor with the sound that a falling katana makes. Aya was rigid. His hands twitch and he couldn't breath properly. This must be an equivalent of a panic attack for Aya. He never told ANYONE his real name, so how in the name of all orange could Yohji have known?

_**I'm not Yohji.**_

Resolve fast fading, Aya stumbled backwards until his back met the wall. To stem his panic he asked a question, voice deceptively calm.

"Who are you then?"

Yohji, or whoever he was now, talking without moving his lips and looking like the evil cat who got the cream, slowly slid out of the window and into Aya's room. Yohji's body didn't move, it flowed- like a tiger on a prowl. Aya could only watch.

"Who are **you?**"

Stoping an arm's length away from Aya, Yohji made a flourish move with his hand and placed it on his chest.

**_Who am I you ask?_** He cocked his head to one side, as if considering an amusing question. This triggered Aya's hair trigger annoyance.

"You deaf or what?"

Laughter so deep it shamed Aya's voice was heard, coming from all sides. It was the kind of laughter that raised the hairs on the nape of your neck, and Aya's did.

_**My, my, my. A fiery little kitten do I have before me. **_

The voice in Aya's head just had to make a comment. _My, my, my? Tsk, tsk, tsk? Who is this nut and why does he sound like a dandy repeating things thrice?_

_**Did your dear sweet mother; may her soul rest, ever read you fairy tales?**_

Aya instinctively threw a punch, one that was deftly caught with a steel grip that almost bent Aya to his knees. _Twice in one night, my you really are becoming the weakling. _Shut up! Aya snarled at the voice inside his head. As if dealing with one nut wasn't enough!

_**Well, did she?**_

"What does it have to do with anything you…a-ah…" The grip, if it could, tightened and twisted, and Aya bent his knees slightly to alleviate the pain.

_**Answer the question.**_

"Ye-es…"

_**Then you know me already. **_

"What?"

_**I am the big bad wolf. I am murderous king Bluebeard. I am the treacherous Mr. Fox. I am the wicked queen who eats hearts. I am Koschei the deathless, I am Baba Yaga the witch… but I am older than those fairy tales. I am the deep dark forest, I am the spirits who howled in the deep of the night, and the troll under the bridge or more appropriately, was. Right now, I am Yohji Kudou, former P.I. and now Hunter of the Night, which is ironic, because I am the Night. **_

He released Aya's wrist, and walked, or more appropriately, flowed towards the bed, first making a face towards the Spartan décor then gracefully sitting himself down.

_**What do you think?**_

Massaging his wrist, Aya snarled. "I think you're a complete and utter nut."

Yohji, or the person formerly known as Yohji, smiled wryly.

_**That's what they all say… at first. **_

'_What does he mean? Who's they?' _Aya realized, and not for the first time so maybe he just remembered, that he was way in over his head. This was something he didn't sign up to do on the Kritiker 'Do you want to be an Assassin?' survey. Then something clicked.

"You." Aya snarled, "I know you… I've…" he tried thinking of a word with less innuendo, but couldn't, not in the present condition was his brain up and ready to do word hunts, so he gave up and said it instead. "I've felt you." Which was appropriate, because he couldn't very well say that he's seen Yohji or the thing residing in Yohji's head before.

_**Ah, brilliance to rival that old nut, da Vinci. I knew him, you know. **_

"Most everybody does." Then he added, to spite, "You know."

Yohji, _or the person formerly known as Yohji, so let's just call him 'P.F.K.A.Yohji', shall we?_ Inserted the voice in Aya's head. Kami… enough! P.F.K.A.Yohji sighed and gave Aya a condescending sideways look. _He's acting like a dandy… when did Yohji ever not._ Aya mused.

_**I knew him intimately, ate at his table, watched him paint your overblown Mona Lisa. Quite frankly, I never gave that painting of his a, how do you say it nowadays? Ah, yes, never gave it a rat's ass. ****So much fanfare for quite the ugly lady. **_

Aya raised an eyebrow. He was pissed, his arm hurt from being attacked twice in one night with an iron grip, his head gave up minutes ago from trying to make light of the situation he was in, and here was Yohji, or P.F.K.A.Yohji, sitting on his bed, being a dandy and telling him the most irrelevant and useless things. Kami, what a pricelessly shitty day…

"So? You knew the guy. What the hell do I care?" was what Aya had in mind, but instead he settled for "So?" It unnerved him that this thing before him made him terribly annoyed and annoyingly terrified both at the same time. P.F.K.A.Yohji smiled a particularly malicious smile, which unnerved Aya further.

**Nothing, just trivial nonsense. I've been watching you for so long I wanted to hear you talk.**

His nostrils flared as a sudden anger flowed like a torrential flood through his body. He has displayed the widest range of emotion since he joined Weiss this single night, switching from pissed, foreboding, terrified, clueless, affronted and clueless yet again, then this… _like a lamplight turned on and off at someone's will… what the…_

"It was you wasn't it? The one outside my window… watching me sleep…"

**I hardly think a little old shadow in the night would unnerve a mercenary like you.**

He stayed his hands from flying to strangle Yohji, because he's a smart Assassin and could at the most assess situations where there is potential loss, but also because he was fighting of something else in his head. Now that he thought about it, it was as if a veil had been lifted and he could see, no, feel the heaviness in his head. The thing inside Yohji's head was trying to get into his own head!

"Get the hell out of my head."

The silence that greeted Aya's low growl was broken by hollow clapping- P.F.K.A.Yohji was clapping slowly, malevolent glee still apparent.

**I had a feeling you'd be so much smarter than Mr. Yohji Kudou… well, he figured it out himself, but was too late. I had near perfect control of his mind when he figured it out. He's a fighter, definitely. Thank you, by the way, for knocking him out with that jar of ammonia earlier, if it hadn't been for that then I would never have had taken over completely.**

"What?" Aya cried out, eyes wide and jaw slack.

**Yes, Ran. You're my little accomplice. It wasn't hard to maneuver the two of you to stay together long enough for the right time. A little nudge here and there, and the two of you thought it was all your idea… **

Kami... oh shit. Aya desperately wanted to look around for an escape, or bend down to retrieve his katana, but he knew deep in his guts it would be futile, so he went back to slumping against the wall instead. His throat had gone dry…

"Why… why me?"

Yohji raised an eyebrow, again amused.

**Why? Simple. Because I want you.**

As if on cue moonlight shone in and the curtains fluttered, and this time when Yohji smiled, it was mirthless, and Aya could see the fangs.

* * *

Koschei the deathless and Baba Yaga are staples of Scandinavian (or is it Russian?) folk tales that have evolved to fairy tales. There is a Baba Yaga cameo in the Sandman series and Koschei was mentioned, regarding his heart.

Leonardo da Vinci, I can't tell if he's a nut. I have nothing against Mona Lisa, and I think it's a fine painting, although admittedly she does creep me a tad.

Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. I'm drawing this out… ah, I actually did a drawing for this story, but I don't have a scanner, so tough luck for me. So I'm going to admit it, I thrive on reviews! Please review… lengthy ones are deeply appreciated. There's this happy pink fuzzy state of feeling that I get when I read reviews and get new ones… yes, it's vain… okay I'm ashamed now.

I'm trying to write as fast as I can, but such exercise is futile when you have nothing to write at the moment, but still thanks for sticking with me all throughout this crazy story, and yes the light at the end of the tunnel is near, although I think it will be short-lived, and would need a sequel. Argh!


	17. Little Red and the Bad Ass Wolf

_**I want you.**_

His heartbeat raced as if it was, well, in a drag race against severe adrenaline junkies and not because his pheromones are in overtime (like Yohji would've said, "It ain't love"). Instead of giddiness and butterflies-in-the-stomach-kind of feeling, he felt dread go all over his body like an ice age all over a race of dinosaurs. Aya, or Ran, in accordance with the voice in his head, felt like he was 7 years old all over again, standing right outside an abandoned shrine in an unlighted crossroads ready to piss his pants over a stupid dare. In short, he was scared shitless. We don't even have to flashback to a 7-year old Ran, just as far as last Saturday night when Aya was tucked in with his katana being stalked by a shadow that, by the way, actually confessed to be the being inside Yohji's head. His throat constricted, and he had to force out the words in a voice he sure hoped as hell wasn't shaky, because his body already was.

"What the hell do you want from me?"

Herein P.F.K.A.Yohji stood (again) and flowed towards Aya (again) because basically, that's all he can do with Aya still slumped against the same wall for over thirty minutes now. Only now, he bridged the gap totally, as if he said, "Fuck arm's length, I'm going in for the kill", if he did say it. Here's how they looked: Aya slumped and looking up, one hand holding the left shoulder (so that's the right arm across his chest) while P.F.K.A.Yohji has his left hand to the wall, head cocked to the left, right hand under Aya's chin, and we can forget about the legs. Aya didn't even bat an eyelash when this was done in shorter than a flash, because by now his mind is adapting to the new found fact of Yohji's freaky speed.

_**What do I want from you? What indeed?**_

Distance crossed, Aya felt the full force of a mind trying to get in his head, and it left him close to completely powerless. He definitely limped, what with all his strength focused in his mind trying to defend its territory from foreign invasion. He thought a mantra was in order, so he thought one up on the fly. "Don't be like limp noodle Yohji!" To which P.F.K.A.Yohji laughed in that deep, rich, laughter of his that was earlier noted to have the capacity to shame Aya's voice, which is a big feat to accomplish without sounding like a Christopher Lee wannabe. Which means, if P.F.K.A.Yohji found his mantra amusing, then he could definitely read Aya's mind.

"Stop. Get the fuck away from me!"

_**Now why would I do that?**_

"I don't know, I'm not a sick bastard like you, you asshole" was what Aya wanted to say, but by now we all know that Aya always want to say these long sentences but never gets around to saying them, so he settles with, in this case, a noise that he commendably made to sound like a very derisive snort. This only cause P.F.K.A.Yohji to laugh again, and shake Aya's chin like an adult would to a child to make sure Aya knew he was amused.

_**Ah, don't worry, kitten, I can't get into your mind… you guard it all too well… I can, however, feel what you feel in such a close distance. **_

Aya responded quickly by feeling really, really, "Takatori-shine!" angry, as in steaming mad, that P.F.K.A.Yohji let go of his chin and afford a few inches of divide between them as Aya's emotion flooded like a tidal wave through him.

_**Amusing, but not wise. **_

"Shove off."

Right then and there a significant change of emotions came across P.F.K.A.Yohji's face, and for a moment Aya was confused as to whether he actually won something. Perhaps "shove off" are actually the magic words to deter crazy, head-invading, shadow stalkers. P.F.K.A.Yohji scowled, and it was completely terrifying because he took on something other than Yohji, as if an errant shadow fell across his face and Yohji's face acquired some indescribable feature so sinister that Aya can't help but shudder. He pushed off from the wall, and Aya consciously stood his full height. P.F.K.A.Yohji turned, and then tilted his head back towards Aya. A hand went for the lone earring that Aya's hand instinctively shot out and gripped the hand holding the earring.

_**I want you because I do. You are in no position to ask me explanations.**_

"Oh?" Aya snarled. "And what position is that?" and the voice inside his head whispered conspiratorially: '_you should've added 'fucking' somewhere in that sentence. Makes you more bad ass.'_ Aya however was too preoccupied to snap back to the voice in his head that he personally abides by the "Less is More" rule of thumb.

_**A position… well, remember what I said before? When you asked as to my being?**_

"…"

Toying with the earring (and consequently adding to Aya's prodigious ire), P.F.K.A.Yohji remains undeterred from Aya's silent treatment, to which Aya can only mentally say "Dang…" because it usually works with anyone he tries it on to.

**_Think, kitten. If I were the big bad wolf, the scary 'Vampire' _**(and he said the word in such a way that one gets the mental image of quotation marks and a capitalized letter)**_, who would you be then?_**

Speechless, Aya's hand immediately went to his neck. The voice inside Aya's head insisted on answering it with an astounded whisper of… _'Little red riding hood?'_ Ignoring the specifically stupid conclusion the voice in his head whispered, Aya came to his own dreadful conclusion and repeatedly said in a hollow voice, "You didn't… You didn't say Vampire earlier…_ Kami_… Yohji was…" P.F.K.A.Yohji raised an eyebrow with a look of fake surprise.

_**Oh, didn't I say I was a 'Vampire'?**_

* * *

****

What is it with this fascination with Aya? And who is this Night creature? Hmm… (So here I am, computer all fixed minus internet connection, pleasantly buzzed- thank you San Mig Beer! - all ready to take on the monstrosity that is the Crazy Sunday Mornings fic, which would probably end with a sequel called "Love Your Wednesdays", with two other fictions under construction in my mind- one's an after the whole business and the other's a Schwarz- with "Bridget Jones' Diary" playing somewhere on some TV and a CD of "Manila Sounds" for my soundtrack of the night….) Good lord, I must take those two out of that room if I want to type something other than "he got up" or "his hand shot out".

Terribly sorry for the very, very long delay, and hopefully, as I am writing this, I can finish this fic all in one go. Hopefully. Shout outs are in order: **Tysoyo Kalli-** I hope this one answers the question of who the Night creature is, and why Aya? Hmm, indeed why? Next chap will probably tell us why. Thanks for digging the twisted turns and pivots this fic takes. **Vampire Louise-** hey VL, you read this in both Mediaminer and Fanfiction, wow. This must be some kind of crack… **LoveyouHateyou-** I think this fic is gloomier than my others, only that they're in the Gloom-Lite (tm) corner of the room. **Artemis347-** that is a question I am trying to reconcile with myself. Let's see what happens and hope for the best I guess. **LeolaTaylor-** thanks for loving it, and well, they're all a tad bit insane anyway.


	18. To Hell and Back

A/N: sentences in italics are part of a flashbacked dialogue which explains what's going on (those sentences not in italics). Anyway, they're neatly segmented by those spiffy lines so it's not so hard. Sorry if it's a weird way to write. Plus, this chapter seems sexual. Warning to those not into those things.

"_You want me to what?"_

_**Sacrifice yourself. In behalf of those entirely innocent people that you constantly pit yourself against death to protect. **_

* * *

It should hurt. It was supposed to hurt. But damn it if he could feel a thing. He feels a bit lightheaded though; a minute after the first thrust and the skin broke. Now the only thought running through Aya's mind was "This is so fucking homosexual."

* * *

"_No."_

_**Come now Ran, where is your sense of justice?**_

"_I don't live to protect them all from weirdoes like you."_

_**I see. I never thought it would come down to this, Ran, I had such great faith on your profound, if misplaced, sense of justice. But very well, know that you have put this upon yourself.**_

"_Where are you going?"_

* * *

He put it upon himself, he knows. But he just couldn't let the man go. If _it_ was a man. Common sense would not let him believe the reality… what a fucking paradox. Framed against the window and the moonlight stood Aya in his room in the arms of Yohji, of all people. This was not his night.

_**I need to feed. That is why I have survived all these millennia of years, why I would let my survival rest in the hands of one eager scientist… They thought I am just a myth, did they? Ah, but there is always that one man who thinks otherwise… too bad you killed him.**_

"_Jeumans?"_

_**I was hoping you were the one to kill him, but never mind. Dream and reality rarely coincide with you fickle humans. **_

"_I won't let you kill another innocent bystander."_

_**How, pray tell? You can't even match me, let alone defeat me. I have perfected myself long before even any of your ancestors were ever born. You are mortal and I am not. **_

* * *

He knows the futility of struggle, first hand. Feeling dizzier, Aya reluctantly threw an arm over Yohji's neck to support himself. His knees are giving way, and Yohji felt it, so the older man wound an arm around Aya's hips. This close, they can feel each other's emotion. Yohji's embrace tightened as his emotions escalated near euphoria, and Aya gasped.

* * *

"_What have they done against you?"_

_**Nothing. Do you ask yourself that same question when you feed? Do you need to have a vendetta against all plants just to eat a potato? I think not.**_

"_Fuck you. We're not your food."_

_**On the contrary, you are. As amusing as conversing with you can be, I have to leave. Pressing matters need my attention. **_

* * *

Aya tried to remember why he was doing this as the other man's emotion washed over him. He could feel it, though he can't explain why. Like velvety warm sunlight brushing all over his skin, tingling the minute hairs and washing him pink.

* * *

"_Stop…"_

_**Listen, boy, no one is innocent. Everyone deserves to die. I just help them get to that a little earlier. Now bug off. I have a certain girl in mind that would do nicely as a surrogate to you. I think you know her. Dark braided hair, brown eyes, and temperamental but mostly nice, lives in her college dorm…**_

"_Aya-chan!"_

_**Ah yes, that's her name. **_

* * *

"Ah… Aya-chan…"

Aya screwed his eyes shut as another wave of euphoria emanated from the other man towards him, consuming him and washing out his rage and embarrassment. This wasn't supposed to feel… well… damn well good.

* * *

"_You. Slimy. Bastard. Just you try and I swear I'll…"_

_**What? With a sword and a rosary? Maybe some garlic while you're at it? The Church's top occult assassins couldn't even touch my robes, what makes you think you can?**_

"_I'll damn well try."_

_**Ah, your sense of justice is coming back. Poor little innocent Aya-chan, killed by a vampire just after resuming life…**_

* * *

Minutes stretch like millennia, as Yohji's muscles tightened, preparing for the last few seconds before pulling out. Aya could not see the blood tinged eyes as it opened wide at the moment that felt like the world would shatter and turn inward at the same time.

* * *

"_Damn you."_

_**How far will you go to save her from me, Ran? **_

"_To hell and back."_

_**Very well then… All you have to do is accept my simple proposal. Be my willing victim Ran. Let me feed on you for one night in a month. Its just another little sacrifice the world demanded from you to protect your darling little sister… **_

* * *

Another sacrifice… just another small sacrifice the world demands of Aya…

Yohji made a small hissing sound as he pulled out, licking his teeth lasciviously as he held on to the last of the fading euphoria. Aya almost swooned, almost forgetting himself completely, and he felt the sated sensation of the other man mingling with his own emotions… he felt drained…

_**

* * *

Ran, Ran, Ran, your blood is exquisite…**_

Coming to himself once more, the horror came back as he stood there in Yohji's arms, his neck licked clean of any droplets of blood there may still be. He mustered his strength and pushed hard at Yohji's chest, unbalancing himself as he stumbled backwards to further the divide. He could hardly form coherent sentences as he snarled the best curses he could gather from a presently feeble mind.

"You've got what you want, now leave. I mean it."

Yohji frowned momentarily, before looking out the window towards the pale moon.

_**It will heal. My saliva will close the punctures and you'll regain color once you've rested. **_

"Go away!"

With a last sideway glance Yohji hoisted himself deftly on the window ledge and in a moment disappeared into the night, leaving Aya alone, more than ever, and exhaustedly slumped on the hard, wooden floor. Head down, a callused hand felt the punctures on the neck as they closed themselves.

* * *

"…_Damn you…"_

_**I already am. But that doesn't mean I can't take you with me.**_

* * *

The darkness hides whatever emotion Aya has, and whether in rage or in sorrow the night only knows. One thing's for sure, however, as the stillness of the night can't conceal the low whisper of a dangerous voice.

"Now I'm really going to kill Yohji."


	19. Still Crazy Sunday Mornings

_A thing like that, no one looks past from._

In the deep of the night, a tall shadow was cast onto a dark room through a parted door. The room the shadow fell on was bereft of any sign of being lived in, save for the books aligned on one of the four walls and clothes just now discarded onto the chair dragged from its usual place before the study to stand near the bed. If one can follow the stare of a shadow, one would find, indeed, that it was staring at the person lying as if dead somewhere beside the bed, on the hardwood floor, before the window. The person's pale shoulders were slumped, and had it belonged to a less muscled individual that did not own a specific part of anatomy, would have looked fragile. The person was sprawled on its left side, with nothing supporting its head of cascading hair of, on some days a brilliant but on nights a deep, wine red. And if one looked real hard, one would find several stitches; some healed burns and old wounds that marred the pale skin of the body steer clear of the face, and barely see two puckered bite marks on it's neck, unheedingly healing by themselves.

_Yes, a thing like that no one could overlook._

The shadow seemed, if a shadow could indeed, to hesitate, and after a few seconds, moved into the room. Pausing before the prone body, the person who owns the shadow looked about the room, trying to see something, then put its hands on its head. A hand reaches for the shirt pocket, and a cigarette followed by a lighter was produced. After the first inhaled smoke, the person bent down, and muttered a few curses as it lifted the other person off the floor and managed to gingerly transport it onto the bed. A few more hit from the cigarette, and the person left.

_A thing not easily dismissed indeed._

* * *

Morning found him seated before Ken and Omi, nursing a mug of coffee. It wasn't really nursing, not really, because he didn't even once sip the stuff. He merely liked holding something warm between his hands, is all, just after a night out in town. He could almost hear himself counting …3…2…

"Kudou."

Immediately Yohji's face brightened up, pasted on a smile and looked up to a would-be assailant. He could see himself, with his invisible eyes afloat somewhere in front of the scene, sitting there with a smile that all that was missing was the ting!' (Sound equivalent of a gleaming white teeth sparkle, mind you) in front of a very pissed off would-be assailant, who, to begin with, was already really pissed off.

"Aya", a voice started to whine, but then everyone knew who it was, "you promised not to bring your katana in the dining room especially when we're eating!"

Yohji saw the eye twitch ever so slightly and could imagine how Aya wanted to pinch the bridge of his nose and count to ten in all the languages he knew, which, by the way, was around the minimum of five not including the dead languages. That made Yohji's smile grow wider. No one spoke a word, and he knew Ken was holding his breath by the way the young man's palette was slightly turning red.

They stayed that way for some time, Yohji's facial muscles miraculously holding that smile (which seemed to become maniacal more and more with every second that goes by), Omi staying in a brewing tantrum, Aya standing with hands gripping the sides of the table with the katana lain suggestively before Yohji. In fact, Ken was the only one who made some of his muscles move when, after remembering it, he started to breath very discreetly. And, as expected of a house of Assassins, nothing made noise, not even a fly (not because they trained assassin flies, mind you, but because there was no fly because all four gentlemen, yes even Ken, liked to be at least hygienic. When you've seen what they've seen night after night, you would like to be hygienic too. In fact, you'd hold hygiene as one does a security blanket and maybe, as in the case of Aya, develop some sort of obsession to it).

One thought occupied all minds present: someone had better fucking give in and make the first move, because we'd go on like this till sundown just like the week before last week!'

Of course, none of their faces betrayed this thought. The curious tableau continued for some more moments… and then a sigh. Not a tired sigh, but more of a definite you're-not-getting-away-with-this' letting out of air because there is nothing better to say. Aya gave a final menacing glare to Yohji, who thought it a wise decision to wink (which is not a wise decision at all), which made the formers eyes become dangerous narrow slits and stalk off in a huff. When Aya was presumably a great comforting distance way away, the rest started moving- Ken reaching for the plate of eggs, Omi glumly drinking his orange juice, and Yohji gingerly massaging his cheeks and moving his mouth about to wake up some of the facial muscles that fell asleep or frozen up from that too long of a smile. Yes, indeed. Same shit every damn Sunday morning.

"Well", Ken said between forkfuls of pancakes, "looks like last week was a lucky fluke." The other two nodded in agreement. "At least we didn't all move at the same time and ended up holding our weapons to the neck of the nearest person."

"Who was me, in an unfair sort of way because this is a _square_ table right? That possesses _even_ sides? Which means we're _all_ each other's nearest person? RIGHT?" Said Yohji, a tad reproachful, placing his hands back to their places around the mug.

Omi spared the older man a raised eyebrow. "_You_ had your wire looped around all _our_ necks." Both younger men gave Yohji a look, which Yohji, being himself, promptly ignored.

"Yeah, well…" he trailed off, a bit lamely, and then cleared his throat, "by the way Ken, how come you held your _breath_ that long?"

Ken, failing to see the question as a mere diversionary tactic of Yohji's, or if he did he just disregarded it nonchalantly in a significantly Ken way which is somewhere between being simple but not stupid' and just plain stupid' (which he was not, mind you, just sometimes seeming to be so, deceptively), shrugged his shoulders. "Well, you know Aya- he can get worked up an' angry at you just because you're breathing."

"Ah." Both Omi and Yohji said; because, well, just what do you say to logic like that? Sometimes, Ken baffled them more than Aya did. They continued in their breakfast, and then someone popped THE question.

"Anyone know why Aya's paler than usual? And why he seems so tired this time round?" Ken casually asked, though the question burned and itched at the back of everyone's mind… well by everyone meaning Ken and Omi. The two turned to look at Yohji, expecting an enlightened answer as though he was Buddha and knew what the heck was happening. Yohji shrugged, "like hell I'd know what crept up his butt and died there."

And though there was two pair of eyes on him, they seemed to miss that slight maniacal edge to the laugh, the glint in the eyes, and the awkward way he held the mug. And if the two were interested enough, they'd notice the way Yohji's eyes trailed after Aya's wobbling figure with a look of something in them, and how he seemed to always be wiping something from his chin and cleaning his teeth behind the cup of coffee he seemed to fancy but never really drank these Sunday mornings of late.

FIN

* * *

But not the end, if you still want to know some few loose strings from this one. I'll be getting around to writing "Love Your Wednesdays" someday. But if this is good enough for you, then it's the end.

By the way, if you just skimmed down this chapter because you think it's just a recycled one, read it over again because I made some changes. I really did, I promise.

Thank you for reading this far!


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